


Just Play Along

by stover



Series: Just Play Along (fic collection) [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avoiding the Problem, Cuban!Lance, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Hair Salon, Korean!Keith, M/M, Miscommunication, One Big Family, Pining!Keith, Texting, Toxic Friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-08-08 10:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7755064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stover/pseuds/stover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's been in love with Lance for fourteen years, brushing off every come-on and lingering touch because he knows that Lance is a flirt who can't help himself. Ruining a good friendship is the last thing he wants to do, but there's only so much he's willing to just play along with — especially when life is about to pull them apart for the first time ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lance needs a beard

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god, this is so stupid and I apologize in advance /o\

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Please don’t tell me that’s a euphemism for sex.”

He was telling Shiro why he shouldn’t _ever_ be bleaching black hair at home when Lance came barreling right into the salon to scream at the top of his lungs:

“GUYS, I NEED A BEARD!”

He looked, to Keith, as traumatized as he was in the first grade when the bouncy house their class was playing in starting deflating. Naturally, it collapsed with Lance still inside. That was the day Keith heard the little shithead bawling his eyes out and, for once, didn’t feel like punching him. Instead, he dove right in, dragged the idiot right out from underneath the piles of heavy vinyl and nylon cloth, and pushed him toward their teacher.

That was also the day Lance kissed him on the cheek as thanks and made Keith realize that _whoa_ , he was fucking _gay._

Also, that he liked Lance.

But that was something he was never, _ever_ going to release to the general public for as long as he could help it.

_(it also meant lots of pent up frustration and empty tissues boxes, but haha, that was never going to be acknowledged, **ever** ) _

Keith stared at Lance for a long, contemplative moment. Then, he responded as helpfully as he could. “Sorry, the salon only cuts hair, not re-attach it to your face.”

“Well, we _do_ do hair extensions,” Allura gently corrected as she finished drying Pidge’s short locks. “Of course, that’s not quite attaching it to one’s _face_ , now is it?”

Hunk laughed, a nostalgic smile spreading wide across his face. He was sitting at the salon’s front counter and fixing Allura’s cash register when he launched into a quick story. “The barber shop my dad went to when I was a kid used to do fake sideburns made with real hair. There were all kinds, too, like— those big, bushy ones and the teensy, itty-bitty thin ones. And they just stuck ‘em right on the sides of your face with, like, glue or something. It was _so_ weird.”

Allura looked interested. “Oh? Like the ones you’d buy at a party store?”

Pidge scrunched up her nose. “Why would a party store need to sell fake sideburns?”

“ _You_ know,” Hunk started with all the excitement of a child in a candy store, “for costumes! Like, maybe if you wanted to look like Wolverine, or, or, Abraham Lincoln! Or, like, you know, if you wanted to do something crazy like rob a bank or kidnap a child for ransom or something like that.”

Everyone just kinda paused to stare at Hunk.

Hunk stared back. “What?”

They all went back to what they were doing.

Which meant Lance went back to being loud.

“Oh my god, _STOP IGNORING ME!_ I’m serious, guys! I need a beard!”

“Why do you need a beard?” Shiro asked, turning his head around.

“Don’t move,” Keith snapped, jerking Shiro’s head back to face the mirror, “unless you want to lose an ear.”

“Sorry,” Shiro said, and then repeated his question while keeping his head still. “Why do you need a beard?”

“I don’t need a _beard_ beard, I need a… a ‘beard’,” Lance said, using air-quotes with the last word.

Keith’s grip on his hair clipper almost slipped. He felt Shiro shift in his chair; he had no idea if it was because he noticed or if it was him reacting to what Lance said. To Shiro’s side, Pidge was looking at Keith with an unnervingly knowing look through the mirror while Allura… was staring at Lance in absolute bafflement.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Allura said. “You need a… a ‘beard’?” she repeated, using air-quotes and everything. Something in her face suddenly dropped, and she was giving Lance a look of motherly disapproval. “Please don’t tell me that’s a euphemism for sex.”

“What? No!” Lance ran both hands through his hair. “It’s when a guy needs to borrow a girl and they, you know, put on a show for some ignorant hard-asses!”

Allura seemed mildly interested. “Does it involve dancing?”

“Oh my god,” Pidge whispered, trying to smother a laugh with her hands.

Shiro cleared his throat and looked to the side. “Allura, its—”

“Don’t _move_ ,” Keith hissed, turning Shiro’s head back.

“Oops. Sorry. It’s not like that at all, Allura.”

Hunk was the generous soul who provided enlightenment to their "I'm-a-38-year-old-mom" friend. “It’s when a gay man has a pretend girlfriend to cover up the fact that he’s gay.”

A light of understanding came to Allura’s eyes. “Oh! Well, why didn’t you just tell us you needed a pretend girlfriend?”

Lance looked seconds away from pulling his hair out. “I just _did!”_

Allura tsked and reached over to pat him on the shoulder. “There’s no need to raise your voice, Lance. And don’t worry about getting a ‘beard’, as they say. I will gladly be your pretend girlfriend!”

This time, Keith’s grip on his hair clipper _did_ slip. A patch of skin stared up at him from the back of Shiro’s head. He quickly turned off the hair clipper before he actually took off Shiro’s ear like he’d joked earlier. Luckily, everyone else was too busy being shocked to notice his fuck up.

“You’re _kidding_ me.” “Whoa, what??” “Uh… Allura…?”

The last one was Shiro, who was looking a little… Well, he was _dating_ her, so that put his reaction into perspective, right?

Lance, on the other hand, looked ready to drop to his knees and cry. And he probably surprised nobody by doing exactly that. Though, the ‘crying’ was more on the dramatic monologuing side than actual crying. “Oh my god, Allura! Queen of my heart! I knew you secretly harbored feelings for—ow, ow, _ow_ , that’s my _ear!_ Keith, dude! I thought you were on my side! Come on, childhood friends, here?”

Lance pouted at him and Keith let go with an eyeroll because ugh, he was _WEAK_ and _GAY_ when it came to Lance and he. . . . didn’t expect Lance to latch onto him so suddenly, like what the _fuck?_

Lance was pressing his cheek against the side of his face and patting the top of his head. There was a big, dorky grin on his face as he squeezed Keith in a hug. “Awww, don’t be jealous. I’m sure you’ll find someone to love you unconditionally.”

“Yeah,” Keith scoffed, “like your mom.” He shoved Lance off of him and felt no guilt when the shove sent Lance bouncing into Hunk.

Apparently, Hunk had no chill today. “Dude, careful with the register. It’s already broken, don’t need you falling into it and breaking it. _Again_.”

“Wow, I’m _really_ feelin’ the love here, bro. _Oodles_ of it.” Suddenly, Lance was back to his usual perky self. “And _speaking_ of ‘oodles,’ _that_ rhymes with ‘noodles,’ which reminds me of phở, which _reminds_ me of Mekong _which reminds me_ of my big family dinner _at_ Mekong this Saturday at 6 PM featuring my lovely, not-so-lovely grandparents and my blabbermouth, uh, _mom_ who told the entire family that I was bringing a date to dinner.” **(1)**

The team stared at Lance with contemplative looks.

“Let me guess. _You_ were the blabbermouth, weren’t you?” Keith couldn’t help but remark because that meant seeing Lance trip up and get flustered.

“ _What_ are you _talking_ about— No _way_ , I wouldn’t— Are you seriously thinking I would— Come ooon, I’m not _that_ desperate—”

 _Score._ He loved turning Lance into a confused, blabbering mess.

He also just loved Lance in general. Just sayin’.

Lance threw his hands up. “Oh, it doesn’t matter who the blabbermouth was! The point here, is that I never told my family I play for both teams and I don’t think coming out at a family dinner completely unprecedented is the best way for me to do that. There, you can all laugh at my expense later, just— just help me figure this out, okay?”

“Hey,” Hunk started softly, “nobody’s laughing at anything, alright?”

“Yeah,” Pidge said, turning around in her chair and making loose orange strands slide down the front of her giant apron and land on the floor in waves, “as much as we love telling you how much of a dork you are, we’re all here for you, Lance.”

Lance looked like he was going to cry. “Thanks,” he managed, voice wavering slightly.

Part of him wanted to go over and… put his arms around him. But Keith had never done that before (to anyone, really), and he didn’t want to make it weird, so he did what he knew he did best.

“If you get snot on the floor, you’re the one cleaning it up.”

Lance opened his mouth and made to look as if he were about to shout something, but Allura quickly stepped in.

“Saturday at 6, right?” she clarified, effectively diffusing the situation. “And at Mekong? I’ve never been there before. And you mentioned… phở, was it? So, it’s a Vietnamese restaurant?”

“Yeah! Oh, man, you’re gonna love it!”

Keith turned back to Shiro’s hair with the details of Lance’s family dinner sounding in the background. He stared at the stripe of skin on the back of Shiro’s head with a grimace. There was only one way to fix this, he told himself as he sighed.

“Have you ever gotten an undercut before?”

Shiro was about to turn his head, but stopped immediately. “Uh, no. Why?”

“First time for everything, right?”

Keith turned on the hair clipper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) [Mekong](http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/mekong02/) was my go-to for Viet food until recently. I will never stop being bitter about the place closing. (At least they have a place in Queens ;A; )
> 
> The basis for Allura's salon came from my visit to [Allure 13](http://allure13.com/). I never got my hair cut there (the prices are impossible for my budget) but I've always passed by while going to my friend's house and I always thought it was real cute.


	2. Keith fights Pidge and loses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Soooo, when are we gonna talk about the elephant in the room?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was only supposed to be a gag fic that lasts 3 chapters, but [andIJDC](http://archiveofourown.org/users/andIJDC) mentioned how they were "dying to see how everything goes completely wrong cause it just has to with Lance involved," so I will be DRAGGING KEITH THROUGH THE GROUND for about eight chapters before concluding it lovingly. 
> 
> :D

On the night of Lance’s big family dinner, Keith and Pidge were digging ice cream out of a Ben and Jerry’s container and streaming episodes of Steven Universe on a laptop. There was heavy thudding from the apartment next door that was keeping them up again, so they decided to marathon a few episodes of SU until the party on their floor ended.

This was something of a tradition they'd kept up since some rich kids shacked up down the hall. Every Friday night, they hosted a party, open to everyone in the building and then some. The rest of the week, they were about as active as corpses. Nobody knew what the hell they did besides partying.

Keith and Pidge didn't mind, much. As long as the parties were only on Friday nights, they could deal with it. Ice cream and Steven Universe— who could complain about that? They were halfway into ‘Open Book,’ when Pidge suddenly paused the vid and closed the laptop. **(1)**

“Mmig?” said Keith, because his mouth was full of cookies and cream.

“Soooo, when are we gonna talk about the elephant in the room?”

Keith automatically looked to the porcelain elephant statue on the TV stand. It was a housewarming gift from Matt, bought on a trip to India three years ago and gifted away upon his return when he came back to the Holt residence minus one baby sister. **(2)**

He turned an uncertain look back to Pidge. “Um, it’s grey and… cute?”

Pidge punched him in the shoulder. “Not a _literal_ elephant! I’m talking about your huge crush on Lance.”

Keith stared at her. “I don't have a huge crush on Lance.”

Pidge squinted her eyes. She pressed her palms together and placed her hands over her lips. Then, she breathed in. “Boi—”

“Don't do that, that’s unnecessary.”

“It reminds you of Lance, doesn't it.”

“…Yes.”

A grin broke out on Pidge’s face. “Does that mean we’re gonna talk about—”

“No.” Keith opened the laptop and hit play.

Pidge snapped the laptop shut.

Keith scowled.

“You gave Shiro an undercut ‘cause you nicked the back of his head—”

“It was just a close shave, I didn’t _cut_ him—”

“—when Lance talked about needing a fake girlfriend. We should start the conversation there.”

Keith scraped at the bottom of the ice cream container and spooned whatever was left into his mouth. “No.”

“‘ _No’_ you didn’t shave off half of Shiro’s head, or ‘ _no’_ you—”

“ _No_ , I’m not talking about this with you. Also, we’re out of ice cream.” Keith got up from the couch and went into the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

Keith paused in front of the freezer. “…To get more ice cream?”

Keith turned to the couch with a container of cherry garcia. He reached over for the laptop but Pidge swiped it away and cradled it in her arms. Keith scowled.

“We’re _going_ to talk about Lance.”

“Okay? You first.”

Pidge took in a deep, deep breath.

“He likes you.”

Keith spooned a glob of ice cream into his mouth. “No he doesn't.”

Pidge covered her face with her hands. “Oh my god.”

“Look, I appreciate your… _investment_ in my well being, but I don't want to talk about my ‘feelings’ right now.”

“Well, then when _are_ you going to talk about your 'feelings'? Because you’re running out of time. Lance flies out to the Garrison in a month and you’re gonna be stuck here in New York. In a _hair salon.”_

The ice cream in his mouth turned to mud. He forced it down anyway, throwing his spoon into the container and leaving the whole thing on the coffee table. He got up from the couch and started walking to his room.

“It’s been fourteen years already. Don't you think at least one of you needs to say something?”

Keith pinched the space between his eyes. “Pidge.”

“You guys used to hang over each other all the time, and I thought maybe you’d get together in high school, but you guys’ve been _different_ ever since—”

“Pidge—”

“—ever since Hunk joined our group and, sometimes, I feel like you hate him because—”

_“Pidge—”_

“—because you feel like maybe he took Lance away, and then I thought that maybe you’d try to fix things, but it’s— it’s like you don't even care anymore and—”

Keith was shouting before he could stop himself. “You don't think I care?! You don't think I _feel_ how Lance and I are drifting apart? Well, I _do!_ And I’ve _been_ trying, Pidge— I’ve _been_ trying to make things better, but it’s gotten weird since Hunk came around and it _doesn't help_ that they’ve got more in common than I’ll ever have with him.

"And I don’t hate Hunk; I _like_ him, he’s great— and I’m _happy_ that Lance has someone to hang out with and do stuff that doesn't always end up with fighting or being fucking pissed off, so I’m _not_ gonna fuck things up by telling him that I’ve been crushing on him for the past fourteen years. Do you even know how that _sounds?!_ What if he takes it the wrong way? What if he _hates_ me? I’m not gonna— I’m _not_ gonna— I _can't_ — I—”

Keith stopped because he couldn’t say anything anymore, couldn’t even _breathe._  His vision was getting blurry and he refused, _refused_ , to let himself become an emotional wreck over _this_ , over something _this stupid._

Pidge sounded small when she finally spoke. “Keith, I— I didn't mean to— I got out of bounds and I… I’m sorry.”

Keith stared angrily at his feet. He saw a spot of wetness on his shoe. “Yeah,” he heard his voice croak out. “Me too.”

Keith shut the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The episode in question can be read about [here](http://steven-universe.wikia.com/wiki/Open_Book). 50 points to the House that can draw a connection between the themes in that episode to this fic.
> 
> (2) The statue in question can be found [here](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/fa/44/8d/fa448dc9e5a7a157c83bdf5cddcf8169.jpg).


	3. Keith loses to Shiro; there was no fight to begin with

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You haven’t exactly been discreet with your feelings for Lance, you know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, after a nice long chat with the Lance and Keith in my head, and after finally watching the train wreck of a battle in episode 11, I finally decided that it won't be Lance who makes things worse.
> 
> It's gonna be Keith.
> 
> Or, you know. _Both._

It was close to ten at night when Keith got a text. 

 

Shiro  
  
Did you yell at Katie?

Keith stared at his phone. He contemplated ignoring it, but that meant Shiro would call him. And if he ignored _that_ , well. Shiro had a car. Their homes were a fifteen minute drive apart. Wasn’t hard to figure that one out.

 

i apologized

Is everything okay?

Keith grit his teeth because shit, there was no way to answer this without going through The Five Questions. Honesty was the best policy with Shiro, and if Keith learned anything from all the stupid shit he did in his life, it was that Shiro took his degree in psychology seriously — probably more than than his degree in aeronautics. And besides, Shiro was like his dad now, so Keith supposed he could give him a little insight into his number one emotional plague. Resigned to his fate, Keith did his best to explain his sentiments in a text. **(1)**  

it was about my repressed gay feelings. they’re still repressed and they’re staying repressed

Do you wanna talk about it?

Keith squinted at the reply. The Five Questions were coming on strong tonight; Shiro skipped Question Two and went straight to Question Three.

Also, Shiro apparently had no comprehension skills. 

what part of they’re staying repressed do you not understand

Does it have to do with Lance?  
  
Is this about Lance’s fake-dating plan? 

Keith froze. Those were _not_ part of The Five Questions.

WHAT DID SHE TELL YOU 

?  
  
She didn’t tell me anything.  
  
You haven’t exactly been discreet with your feelings for Lance, you know.

That, _that_ right there, out of all the things that he’d experienced in his short twenty-year-old life, _that_ little thing _right there_ scared the ever-loving shit out of him.

Because if _Shiro_ knew, and _Pidge_ could call him out, and _Hunk_ sort of, kind of knew, and _Allura_ maybe, probably had a feeling about what was constantly making him so damn frustrated all the time, then _Lance—_ oh my _god_ , what if—

His fingers typed faster than his brain could process the thought.

does lance know???

Uh  
  
You want to ask Hunk about it?  
  
Should I add him to the chat?

why the fUCK DO YOU THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA???

I thought if you told Pidge, you might’ve told Hunk, too.  
  
You seem to have that kind of vibe with him.

i didn't tell pidge  
  
she found out herself

See? I told you you weren't being discreet about this. 

YOURE NOT HELPING

Tell me how I can help

i dont need your help

Keith’s phone went silent for a while. He changed into looser clothes for the night and took a trip to the bathroom to wash up and brush his teeth. When he came back, there was a long text waiting for him.

I hope you don’t take this as me being invasive.  
  
I think you’ve come to a point where you need to talk to Lance about how you feel. Katie’s right when she said there’s not a lot of time left. I can tell you from experience that the Garrison doesn't kid around. The training is intense, and sometimes, you don't have enough time to breathe. Unless you want to risk waiting the next three years for Lance to complete his training, your best shot right now is to talk to him.  
  
And I know you might feel apprehensive about broaching the subject with Lance, especially because you feel like crushing on him for 14 years is borderline stalker behavior, but you don’t have to tell him that when you talk to him. Lance looks up to you a lot, and he wouldn’t have stuck with you for 14 years if he didn’t feel a bond with you. And a friendship that long is hard to break, especially if all those fights you two have had didn’t break it yet.  
  
Just think about it, okay? There’s not a lot of time left between now and his flight out. The last big event where we’ll all be together is his sister’s wedding two weeks from now. You might want to take advantage of that.

He read it twice before tossing his phone on his nightstand and flopping backwards on his bed. The moment his head hit the pillow, he was suddenly overcome with great exhaustion that made him realize that he was sick of it all— he was sick of being frustrated, sick of avoiding the issue, and, most of all, he was sick of perpetuating his own stupidity and cowardice.

He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and sent over a quick reply. 

thanks for the advice

Anytime  
  
You know I'm always here for you.  
  
❤ 

omg that's so gay 

Perfect for you, then  
  
❤  
  
Good night

i hope you have bed bugs  
  
❤

Keith fell asleep dreaming about bed bugs crawling out of his mattress to hijack his phone and send his conversation with Shiro to Lance.

When he woke up the next morning, he deleted the conversation from his phone and made a quick trip to the deli down the street to grab a bacon, egg, and cheese apology breakfast for Pidge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The Five Questions are as follows: (1) Is everything okay? (2) How are you feeling right now? (3) What happened? (4) Do you think that was the best action you could take? (5) How could you have done things differently? It’s my “cheat sheet” version of the the de-escalation strategy used in [Therapeutic Crisis Intervention](http://rccp.cornell.edu/tci/tci-1_system.html%20), commonly practiced in school settings.


	4. Sunday EMERGENCY Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yo lady, can you chill at least until the food’s gone and we’re waiting on dessert? At least then I can drown my misery in cheesecake. And also a margarita.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dragging begins _**NOW.**_ Just kidding. It's too soon.

In the late afternoon hours on the day after Lance’s big family dinner, there was an urgent memo from one very panicked member of their squad.

6 People  
  
Lance  
RED ALERT RED ALERT  
ALL YOU NERDS NEED TO GTFOUT IRGHT NOW  
FORMY FUNERAL  
I made a reservation for six at Guantanamera, 7:30 PM, which is in like 2 hours  
I BETTER SEE ALL YA FACES TONIGHT  
especially you keith   
Pidge  
you know you could’ve just sent that all in one text, right?  
Lance  
you know you want me vibrating in your pants ;)  
Pidge  
I’m not the one you should be sending that to  
Lance  
???  


Keith went to his phone settings and disabled the group chat option.

 

* * *

 

Keith had been to Guantanamera a total of five times in his life: once because Hunk found a CP 580 Charmander inside and four times because of the loser currently pushing him into the chair right next to said loser.

“Dude, you actually made it! And you’re _on time_ ,” Lance gushed.

Keith gave him a look. “Sunday's my day off. And I live two blocks away.”

Lance just kept flashing him that terribly bright grin of his.

And Keith tried not to make it obvious that he wanted to grab Lance’s face and kiss him.

“So,” Pidge grouched, saving him from eternal embarrassment, “what’s all this about? I was right in the middle of watching that new Voltron reboot, so this better be worth it.”

Lance tsked, wagging a finger. “Guantanamera is _always_ worth it, Pidge. _Look at this spread.”_

Of course, Lance and Hunk had come early to pick out the “best of the best” for the evening, with Allura generously offering to pay for them all. There were all sorts of dishes on the table: chicken in a citrus marinade topped with watercress, avocado, and scallions; yellow rice with shredded chicken and roasted peppers and carrots; two tilapia filets still sizzling on a black plate with onions, capers, and anchovies and drizzled with a sauce of white wine, diced tomatoes, and cajun seasoning; and two platters of empanadas and stuffed portobello mushrooms (those were new, did they always have that here?). **(1)**

Lance suddenly grabbed Keith by the elbow. “Just wait until the _ropa vieja_ gets here,” said Lance in a wily whisper, “Pidge’ll freak. That’s always been her favorite.”

That it was, and Keith knew so well how it was often the only way of apologizing to her after a fight. Especially if the apology began with, _“You were right and I was wrong.”_ And even if it was 8 AM in the morning. _And_ even if she already ate an apology breakfast.

And yes, Keith was specifically talking about earlier today.

Pidge _was_ pleased, even if the only way anyone could tell was by the sudden gleam in her eyes as the dish was brought out of the kitchen. Lance asked the waiter to put it down in front of her; the second it landed on the table, Pidge stabbed a fork right into the dish and hauled half the food right onto her own plate. “If this is what it means to be a know-it-all bitch,” said Pidge, “then I’m totally fighting Keith and Lance every day.”

Allura’s eyebrows furrowed as she and Shiro shared inquisitive looks. Keith heard Hunk groan and mutter, “See what you’ve created?”

Shiro took this moment to clear his throat rather loudly. “So, what’s the occasion?” Shiro asked as he filled up a plate with chicken and tilapia. He was directing the question at Allura, probably asking about why she’d offered to pay for the meal tonight.

“Compensation,” came the answer. Her cheeks were bulging with rice and chicken, but her articulation was somehow still perfect. “For when I share the events of last night. Lance is about to, how you say, ‘get wrecked’.”

At that, Lance just groaned and slouched in his chair. “Yo lady, can you chill at least until the food’s gone and we’re waiting on dessert? At least then I can drown my misery in cheesecake. And also a margarita.” He stuffed an empanada into his mouth and spooned in a large puff of rice, chewing vigorously.

Hunk threw his head back and laughed. “Last night must’ve been some night, then! At least, for your _fam_ , not you, bro.”

“Yeah, tell us the story!” Pidge urged, looking at Allura with bright, eager eyes.

Keith felt Lance lean towards him and whisper loudly, “Trust no one, Keith. Traitors, every single one of ‘em.”

Lance’s hot breath on his ear sent electric tingles down his neck and pricked its way right down to his groin. Keith pushed Lance away before things got out of hand. “Want a mint?”

“I’m _eating_ , you asshat, and there’s garlic and onions in this shit,” Lance hissed, looking right at him as he continued tearing into an empanada.

“So, what happened last night?” Keith asked Allura, preventing Lance from saying anything else and relishing in the doofy squawk that came out of Lance’s mouth. What a cute moron, he thought secretly to himself.

Allura smiled and set her fork down. “The family knew,” she said vaguely, eyes twinkling with mischief. Beside her, Shiro was laughing and shaking his head with a knowing look; of _course_ he’d be the first to know.

“No way,” said Hunk. Then, he paused. "Wait, what does that even mean?"

Pidge just squinted her eyes. “They knew _what?_ That he was fake dating? That this was all a really bad ruse? That there was no way Lance could _ever_ date someone like you?”

At that, Lance squawked again. “Hey!”

Allura just laughed. “I meant his sexuality. His family had long since figured it out. Well, all except for his uncle. I don’t think he was aware that bisexuality was a thing, and I’m sure he had a personal epiphany that evening.”

“Oh, cool,” Pidge said, then adjusted her glasses. “Sooo, how exactly does Lance get rekt in this?”

“You heartless monster,” Lance gasped, flicking a crumb from his empanada crust across the table.

Pidge picked it right off the table and licked it off her finger with a wicked grin.

Keith stopped Lance from throwing a piece of the empanada’s crust across the table. Hunk grabbed the empanada right out of Lance’s hand and dropped whatever was left down his gullet. Lance gave the two a horrified look, then glared at Pidge as he shoveled a mountain of stewed beef and vegetables right into his mouth. Keith and Hunk both looked at each other before rolling their eyes and going back to the meal, keeping an attentive side-eye on Lance.

Keith saw Allura turn to him from the corner of his eyes and gave her his full attention, knowing Hunk was more than enough to make sure Lance wasn’t going to have “RIP — Choked on meat” on a gravestone.

Allura’s eyes were bright as she looked right at Keith. He swore he saw Lance sitting with his back ramrod straight, frozen with something like fear. Or maybe it was indigestion from inhaling so much food in such a short time. Probably both.

“Oh, it was something his mother said,” said Allura, “how she was so certain she knew who Lance would be bringing to the dinner. Linda thought she was going to bring—”

“BOTTLES OF SODA,” Lance shouted, standing up from the table and trying to flag down a waiter. “We need bottles of soda. Coke? Sprite? Pepsi? Whatch'a want, you guys, my treat.”

“Using Spongebob as a way out is WEAK,” Pidge drawled, eyes pinned knowingly right on Keith for some unknown reason. It made him squirm in his seat. Her eyes quickly flicked back to Lance. “Besides, they only have cans here.”

“Nah, they have 2-liter bottles for groups,” said Hunk. “Remember Coran’s birthday party last year? That was dank.”

“Well, apparently last night was dank too!” cried Pidge, slamming a fist on the table. “So c’mon, space queen, reveal the name! Who’d Mama Linda think her boy was gonna bring?”

Keith picked up his glass of water and eyed Pidge. Allura’s alleged nepotism for the smallest member of their squad was revealed when she didn’t even bat an eyelash at Pidge for banging a fist on the table. Keith filed this away for future reference, raising the glass to his lips.

“Lance’s family was expecting to see Keith at last night’s dinner.”

Allura said this proudly as the table adopted a stunned silence. Shiro, whom Keith was willing to bet his entire collection of Star Trek comics to prove that Team Dad already knew, just bounced his eyes back and forth between Lance and Allura. Hunk’s chewing gradually wound down to a stop until he stopped eating altogether and some understanding came to his eyes. Pidge’s expression was made unreadable by the sudden glare the lights overhead pitched onto the lens of her glasses. Lance was staring intently at his plate of food and shaking the entire table with how fast his leg was bouncing underneath.

And Keith was just glad he hadn’t sipped his water just yet, because that would’ve meant the entire dish of tilapia bayamo would have his spit all over it and he was not ready to commit to a giant platter of sautéed fish for the rest of the week.

“Uh,” Keith only said into the silence, “Why?”

Allura’s smile was gentle as she spoke. “Linda always believed the two of you had a special bond. She told me about how you saved Lance in the first grade and helped him through a strong aversion for inflatable castles and loud, sudden noises that came from a very traumatic experience. She sees you as the source of Lance’s confidence and ambition, and sees how you've grown from his influence in turn. She sees you as family, Keith.”

Keith didn’t know what to say.

He _really_ didn’t know what to say.

Like, he REALLY didn’t know what to say. What the hell was he supposed to say to that?! How was he supposed to respond to something like that without wanting to melt right into the ground?!

He was all too aware of how his cheeks were on fire, and he hated the way the rest of the group were just sending him expectant looks with bated breath as if he were something to be put on display.

Lance was right. Traitors, they were; every single one of them.

Shiro cleared his throat then, snatching everyone’s attention onto him and off of Keith (thank god). He smiled kindly and looked to Lance. “So,” he began, voice intoning upwards in the way sitcom dads often did when they wanted to start an awkward conversation, “Lance? Did you want to talk about the wedding, now?”

Wedding? What wedding? Keith’s brow furrowed because for some reason, there was some familiarity with that word. Did he talk about weddings with Shiro? Had the group mentioned someone getting married before?

Probably not, judging from the way they were all staring at Shiro like lost sheep. Everyone except Lance. He was getting particularly red in the face and Keith had no idea why.

Also, he didn’t know Lance’s blushing extended down to his neck. Keith filed that tidbit away for personal use.

“Yes,” Allura suddenly spoke, her hand coming to rest tenderly on top of Shiro’s on the table. She had regained her smile and was looking as chipper as ever. “Linda did mention that she wanted to see you bring us all to the wedding. And, perhaps… a _date_ , as well?”

Hunk suddenly pushed himself away from the table. “Uh, I’m— I’m going to the bathroom. Drank too much water. Be right back.”

“Yeeeeah,” said Pidge, adjusting her glasses. “And I gotta call my parents. I forgot to ask them something. See ya in a few.”

Keith ignored the two rushing away in favor of staring at Shiro and Allura, because, for some reason, there was something about what they both said that rang bells in his head. Something… _important_. He just… couldn’t… put his finger on it…

Then his texts with Shiro from last night came flooding into his head.

There’s not a lot of time left. The last time you and Lance will have a chance to be together is his sister’s wedding in two weeks. You need to take advantage of that.   
  


He felt his brow furrow again at that last part, because _what did Shiro mean_ for him to “take advantage” of the wedding?

A tittering laugh broke him out of his pondering because that sound was coming from _Lance_ , which meant Lance was _nervous_. And Lance was _never_ nervous. If he was nervous, it meant trouble. Keith zeroed in on Lance, wondering why he was suddenly a blubbering mess. And Keith hadn’t even done anything this time, so it must be _some_ thing worth getting so worked over.

“Y-You really don’t have to do this right now, this is— This is way too— And, like, _here?_ We’re out in the open? A-And just because my _mom_ said she wanted me to bring a date, doesn’t mean that can actually _—_ I mean, cause, it’s just, it’s such short notice, you know? I can’t just…”

As Lance’s skittishness played out, Keith singled out three things in particular that really stuck out: “mom,” “date” and “short notice.” So… that meant Lance was freaking out over not being able to bring the “date” his "mom" was expecting on such "short notice." _Again._ He combined that with the wedding (one of Lance’s sisters was getting married, if he remembered correctly), and added in the little detail that Lance’s mother had believed Lance was gonna bring him along to the last event, so she was probably gonna expect that Lance would bring…

Keith's eyes widened.

Him, he realized. Lance's mom was expecting Lance to bring  _him_.

You should take advantage of that  
  


The gears turning in his head started whirring at full force. Keith turned to Lance, who was looking like the time he and Andrew Cloutier from second grade tried to see who could swallow the most worms without barfing. And then, suddenly, it all just clicked so nicely together: the wedding, the date, Lance’s mom, Lance’s worm-eating face, Shiro’s text. And it produced a single line of thought: Lance was nervous about asking Keith to be his date to his sister’s wedding just as he was panicked about finding a cover-up date for the dinner.

This, Keith realized, was the “advantage” he had to take. He’d told himself last night that he was sick of his own shit, hadn't he? Well, this was his chance to get rid of that shit and finally fix his stupidity.

Keith jabbed his fork into some chicken and said as nonchalantly as he could: “I'll go with you to the wedding.”

Lance’s voice sounded faint in his ears. “What?”

Keith ignored the way heat was rising to his face. He decided staring at the filet of fish in front of him was better than looking at Lance. “I said I'll go with you to the wedding.” Their table got awfully quiet. The lack of an immediate response was making him the skittish one now, and Keith picked his head up to see if he could find the response himself by gauging Lance’s reaction.

It was a mistake.

Keith’s breath stopped. Lance’s entire face had lit up with an awestruck expression. And the knowledge that _he_ had been the one to cause such a response made his head spin and he. . . . He _really_ wanted to kiss Lance right now.

“Uh, wow,” said Lance. The red on his face eased to a faint glow as a smile slowly spread across his face. “Thanks, Keith.”

Keith went back to the chicken he’d forked before he could lost his head. He feigned indifference by shrugging. “Your mom said she was expecting you to bring me anyway. So it’s just another beard, right? I can do that for you, I guess.”

A fork clattered loudly on a plate, startling Keith. He looked around the table. Shiro was carding a hand through his hair. Allura looked like she was biting the inside of her cheek. And Lance—

Lance was just… _staring_ at him.

Keith narrowed his eyes and stared right back. “What?”

Lance pressed his lips together. “It’s nothing,” he said quickly, turning away. “It’ll be… just like old times, right? When we were kids? Just the two of us.” He was looking at him again, eyes warm and fond, and his smile… There was something off about his smile, but Keith couldn’t tell what it was.

But he liked seeing Lance smile. So Keith smiled back and bumped his shoulder with a fist.

“Yeah. Just like old times.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) [Guantanamera](http://guantanamerany.com/Home.html%20) is fucking amazing. Used to live two blocks away, and let me tell you-- I had never been poorer in my entire life since those days.
> 
> (2) The wording of Shiro’s text is different here because it’s Keith recalling it from memory. Generally, your memory is shit and chances are, you won’t remember a text word for word unless you’ve got photographic memory.


	5. Constanza’s wedding & the fucked up move

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "YOU HAD ONE JOB."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's about to hit the fan. You ready?

Pidge  
  
A BEARD  
  
I CANT BELEIVEY OU  
  
YOU HAD ONE JOB  


Keith looked across the table at breakfast. “Why are you texting me? I’m sitting right here.”

Pidge pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her face and screamed into it.

Keith decided to leave her alone for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

Slamdunk Hunk  
  
my man keith!  
  
you done cutting long luscious lady locks?  
  
manly locks too  
  
sry  


Keith blinked, eyes slowly squinting at the messages. He replied anyway.

yeah just got off. why what’s up?  
  
oh sweet  
  
where you at bro  
  
?  
  
hold on. I’ll send you my gps  
  
YOOOOO i’m right around the corner  
  
don’t go anywhere ok?  
  
;*  


Keith stared at the text for a while. He raised an eyebrow.

what does ;* mean?  


His answer came in the form of a roaring engine that belonged to a 2012 Jeep Wrangler painted in yellow with white highlights. It came to a stop in front of the fire hydrant, muffled rap music bumping inside, and when the passenger window slid down, Keith had the pleasure of knowing that DMX was blaring through the car’s speakers.

Also, that it wasn’t Hunk who was the one driving. He wasn’t even in the passenger’s seat. That was Shay. Nyma was the one at the driver’s seat. Hunk was, worryingly, nowhere to be seen.

Nyma gave a wicked grin and pounded her hand on the car horn. It blared over the surrounding traffic in the city.

“Get in loser, we’re going shopping!” Nyma shouted, lowering the volume of the music as DMX screamed _“you think it’s a game??”_ into the car. **(1)**

Beside her, Shay squealed and both girls erupted into silly peals of laughter.

Keith stared at them.

One of the back windows rolled down and Hunk stuck his head out. “Sorry, they really wanted to drive. And, uh, quote _Mean Girls_ , I guess. Also, Shay had my phone the whole time and she was the one who was texting you. So, sorry if it got a little weird.”

Keith was still confused. “Uh, okay?”

Hunk gave a broad smile. “Wanna hang? We’re figuring out what to wear for the wedding. You got an outfit planned?”

Here, Nyma cut in. “Noooo, Hunk! Don’t ask if he’s got plans, just grab him and gooo!” She turned turned up the volume on the music and looked to Shay. “God, boys are _so_ dumb.”

Shay laughed. “Nah, you’re just real crazy.”

Nyma grinned again and flicked on some purple aviators. “Fuck yeah, I am.” Nyma hit the car horn again and leaned out of Shay’s window. “Hurry up, mullet man! Time is money!” **(2)**

Keith narrowed his eyes at her. “This isn’t a mullet,” he said, “it’s a—”

“Blah, blah, blah, yeah okay. Just get in the car, geez.”

Keith sighed, but opened the door and slipped in right next to Hunk.

“Sorry, man, this wasn’t my idea,” said Hunk.

Keith eyed the girls laughing and yapping together up front. DMX shouted something and the girls hollered in unison with the song. Keith turned back to Hunk. “It’s fine. At least we’re in this together.”

Hunk laughed, clapping a hand on his shoulder and making him smile. “True that. You’re a lifesaver, Keith!”

“Is he the inflatable kind, or the sweet kind?” Nyma asked.

Keith turned a bewildered look at Hunk.

Hunk pulled his lips back in a grimace and shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head for the universal language for “I don’t fucking know, man.”

“Consider yourself lucky, Kiki,” Nyma said as she made a rather sharp turn to the left, “Once Shay and I are done with you, you’re gonna be one smoking hot man in two weeks’ time. You’ll make every man in New York City so gay for you, this whole fucking city’s gonna be called the meat-packing district from all the boners you’ll be causing.”

Keith eyed the door with a longing look and wondered: if he jumped out of the car right now, would the injuries be worth the escape? _Yes._

Before he could actually do it, Shay turned around in her seat with a gentle smile. “Don’t worry, Keith. We’ll take good care of you,” she promised, and the way she said it actually made Keith feel better. He could totally see why Hunk went for her.

“Let us know if you got any questions, babe,” Nyma offered as the car stalled in traffic.

At this, Keith pursed his lips and took a risk.

“What does semi-colon asterisk mean?”

Nyma and Shay’s shrill laughter almost made his ears bleed.

 

* * *

Shiro  
  
Allura and I are gonna be late  
  
Our sitter canceled and we’re trying to find someone else  
  
But if we can’t go, I hope you have fun tonight!   
  
And don’t think too much into things  
  
Actually, with you, don’t think at all  
  
Except condoms.  
  
Also!  


 Keith never knew what came after Shiro's 'Also!' because Keith just turned his phone off.

 

* * *

  

Cockiness and aggressive badgering aside, Nyma proved to be a great person to have on his side. She and Shay did him right on their promise of taking care of his outfit. He was never going to forget the way Lance looked at him when he finally got to the wedding.

Lance’s eyes slowly widened and his lips parted with a failed attempt at a greeting the moment Keith called out to him. Keith burned that image in his head, and he let his eyes wander down Lance’s body.

Lance looked _good_ ; though, that was hardly a surprise. He always dressed up for these things. He was wearing a tight, blue collared shirt with elaborate gold embroidery down the button front, on his collar, and on both cuffs. The shirt was tucked into a pair of equally tight black pants. **(3)** On any other person, Keith would think the outfit was a little gaudy and an example of “trying too hard.” But on Lance…

Whoo. It was getting kinda hot in here, wasn’t it?

A wide grin finally blossomed on Lance’s face as he rushed over to slink an arm around Keith’s shoulders. “Thank _god_ you’re here,” Lance practically groaned, leaning bodily into him, “my mom’s been asking for you since I got here ten minutes ago. I’m about ready to _freak_ the fuck _out_ , yo.”

Lance was a solid line of heat and toned muscle down his side. The scent of his cologne, deep and musky, did weird things to his head and made his heart started pounding ridiculously hard in his chest. Keith’s response sounded pathetically breathy in his ears. “Yeah, I—” Keith cleared his throat, looking at anywhere but Lance. “Um, no problem,” he finally managed to say, the words coming out as a whisper, and god _damn_ , he shouldn’t have come, this was a bad idea, this was a bad, _bad_ idea.

He felt Lance slowly pull away, taking with him all the delicious warm Keith was suddenly having a ridiculously strong craving to get back.

“Hey.”

One of Lance’s hands cupped his cheek, and his whole face _burned_.

“Look at me for a sec?”

The hand on his cheek gently guided his head so it was face-to-face with Lance. Keith swallowed before lifting his gaze up, and then he was drowning in Lance’s blue eyes, so filled with affection, appreciation, and… anxiety?

“Thanks for coming as my… date. It… It means a lot to me. _You_ mean a lot to me, and I… I really, _really_ —”

Lance was shoved out of the way.

“Theeeere he is!” cried the offender, and Keith was suddenly being swallowed up in the familiar arms of Lance’s mother. She squeezed him and pet his hair and dropped a big kiss to the side of his face before finally letting his body go and holding his face hostage in her hands. “You, look at you!” she crooned lovingly, eyes a sparkling blue. “Ay, mijo, you look so handsome! Red is definitely your color. You look intense and _so_ powerful! Come here, my Lance, mijo,” she said, waving for Lance to come back, “let me look at both you! Come, come!” **(4)**

Lance awkwardly shuffled back to Keith’s side and they let his mom take pictures of the two of them together, then with all of Lance’s siblings, then with her, then with her _and_ her husband, then with—

Well, no one. ‘Cause she was off. She was dragged away by a sister, a cousin, and someone else. Lance’s siblings were busy receiving kisses and hugs and cheek-pinches, and Lance’s father was hanging out with the parents of his daughter’s soon-to-be husband.

Lance grabbed his hand, sweaty and hot, and ushered him inside. “Come on,” he whispered deviously, “we gotta sit on the right side before there’s no more seats left!”

Keith, still a little breathless and overwhelmed by the sudden flood that was Lance’s family and their penchant for pictures, tried hard not to focus on Lance’s hand holding his and focus instead on not tripping over his own feet as he tried to match Lance’s ridiculously fast pace. “What’s on the right?”

Lance threw a smirk over his shoulder. “It’s the side closest to the Rose room. That’s where the reception is. And the killer buffet.” Then, Lance winked.

Keith breathed in slowly, and then out. He felt his hands nervously clench, and the one holding Lance’s tightened for half a second.

Keith tried not to die when he felt Lance squeeze back not a second later.

 

* * *

 

Constanza looked beautiful at her wedding. Her white gown was simple and elegant; a high waisted dress with a deep plunge and a thin lace trim. Her make-up stayed fresh throughout the entire evening, which was saying a lot because she was bawling from the second her father gave her away at the altar all the way to the reception, and then some. **(5)**

Whoever kept posting on the internet to “set the first date at the pool” obviously never met the women of the Castillo family. Or the men. Keith was willing to bet Lance touched up more than “just that one time” for their high school prom. There was no way a person could go through middle _and_ high school with naturally flawless skin. Keith was willing to even punch Shiro to prove that one.

The wedding was nice, but as soon as the music turned on and the reception began, Keith’s head started pounding with a splitting headache. It didn’t help that his nerves were at their worst, especially with all the hand-holding and side-hugging that pretty much attached him to Lance’s hip the whole night. He only got to breathe when Lance was whisked away by his Aunt Isabel, who’d kissed Keith soundly on the cheek before stealing his “beloved” away “for just a moment, darling, don’t you worry ‘bout a thing” and winking at him. When she had gone, Keith quickly wiped the lipstick off his cheek as best he could because he was _not_ walking around with Aunt Isabel’s lip-mark on his face.

He thought he could escape to the bathroom or the lobby, but then he was swarmed by Lance’s siblings all at once. Sophia came over with a flower crown of yellow roses and white magnolias atop her long waves, newly dyed in “galaxy blue,” as described proudly by her twin sister Mia, who kept touching his hair and asking him when he was finally gonna let her dye his hair too. Alexa tried to get him to dance, and laughed kindly when he ended up tripping all over himself trying so hard not to step on her feet, and he had to endure Rodrigo glaring at him from a corner of the room and silently dragging a finger across his throat each time Lance kept popping by to check up on him and place a hand at the small of his back, on his shoulder, or at his hip.

When Constanza was finally near him, she immediately scooped him up in her arms and cried into his hair, telling him how wonderful it was for him to be her brother’s most precious friend and how long she’d waited for _this day_ to come and kissed the crown of his head and left him confused and wondering why she’d just laughed when he asked her “you mean your wedding?” in clarification.

He was slinking away to the lobby when he was suddenly grabbed by Aunt Isabel, who’d kissed him yet again on the cheek and introduced him to Lance’s grandmother, Seleste. She was a tiny woman with equally tiny spectacles and years of wisdom carving lines into her face, but she had the strength of a thousand battle-hardened men, which he found out when she crushed him in a bone-snapping hug and kissed his forehead and dragged him through the entire dance floor, introducing him to every other aunt and uncle and cousin and in-law around.

And even though the hundreds of hugs and smiles and questions and kisses made his head spin and his heart close to thudding right out his chest, he couldn’t help but revel in the warmth and liveliness of being part of a family, of _this_ family, and it. . . . made him smile, and eventually start returning those hugs with some of his own.

Hunk was the one who finally got him out of there, saying something like Keith had a phone call and dragging him away. They were quick to run out before the family remembered that cell phones existed and nobody needed to be dragged away for a phone call any more. **(6)**

They passed by Pidge, who was slightly drunk and having some kind of argument with Mia about how Sophia’s hair couldn’t be called “galaxy blue” because it looked nothing like a galaxy. **(7)** Shiro and Allura were still nowhere to be seen, so Keith and Hunk sat on one of the couches in the lobby snapchatting and facebooking Nyma and Shay until Hunk got a call from a cousin and left Keith sitting alone on the couch.

Which, to be honest, wasn’t at all bad. It was what he’d been wanting the moment the reception began.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, listening to the heavy thumping of music coming from the Rose Room. He could hear a few lines every now and then, but his brain was reduced to hissing static after having to talk to so many people in such a short time. He couldn’t even figure out whether the song currently playing was in English or in Spanish. He let the music wash in his ears to serve as white noise for his brain as his body slowly sank into the cushions.

He was close to falling asleep when he heard Lance.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Keith blinked blearily and felt the couch dip as Lance flopped down with a sigh. Lance looked utterly exhausted, which was quite a thing to declare. Though, given who Lance had been around  the whole evening (his _entire_ family, and then some), Keith wasn’t surprised at all.

Lance’s head fell on Keith’s shoulder and he sighed again. “Dude, I’m, like, ready to knock the fuck out. I’m fucking _tired_ , and that’s impossible.”

Keith didn’t say anything; he just lowered his head to rest on Lance’s and let that speak for him instead.

Lance sat up slowly, easing off Keith’s shoulder and making Keith sit up straight. “Hey,” Lance whispered, turning to face him fully.

Keith took one look at him and burst out laughing. There was a bright red swath of lipstick smeared against Lance’s left cheek. Probably from Aunt Lita.

“Dude, why the hell’re you—”

Keith reached out with his thumb and ran it over the lipstick. “You have _this_ all over your face,” he said, showing Lance the bright red lipstick now on his thumb.

“Oh, whoops — forgot all about that.” Lance reached up with a hand to rub it off, but only succeeded in getting it plastered all over the left side of his face. He scowled. “Man, I hate this shit. It never comes off.”

“You look like a blushing bride,” Keith felt apt to point out with a snorting laugh. “Well. _Half_.”

Lance grinned, tilting his head and looking down at him. “Well, you’re one to talk. You’ve got this shit on your face, too.”

Keith blinked. “What—”

Lance wiped his lipstick-covered hand on Keith’s right cheek. “ _There_ we go,” he laughed, “now we complete each other.”

“Fuck you,” Keith scowled, dabbing his red thumb across Lance’s mouth and smearing color over his lower lip.

“Augh, gross! Keith! That was on my aunt’s _mouth!”_

Keith laughed hard at the sight of Lance furiously rubbing his sleeve over his face and looking revolted and utterly betrayed. He gave Lance a wicked grin of his own. “Trust no one, remember?”

Lance grinned back, red smeared all over his face and looking down at Keith with a warm look and he just said, “Well, _I_ trust _you_. Always.”

It was the sincerity of his tone that made his breath catch. Keith stilled and stared wide-eyed at Lance, who was now starting to stare back with a look akin to nervousness swimming in his gaze. Keith was suddenly all too aware of how close Lance was to him, of how warm he was, of how good he smelled, of how intense and dark his eyes suddenly got as he started leaning in.

“I trust you,” Lance repeated firmly, looking intently at him.

Keith held the gaze for a long, tense second.

Then he reached forward with both of his hands and pulled Lance down for a bruising kiss.

He held Lance’s face in both hands, thumbs brushing against his cheeks, and kissed him like how he’d wanted to for fourteen years. Anxiety started bubbling up when he didn’t feel Lance responding. And when Keith opened his eyes, he saw a frozen face and wide, shocked eyes looking down at his own.

Immediately, Keith pulled away and made to get up because he knew, he _knew_ he shouldn’t have come, he knew this was a bad, _bad_ idea—

Lance grabbed him by his sweater and slammed him back on the couch. And then Keith was flooded with relief because Lance was kissing him, urgently, fiercely, fisting hands in his sweater like he’d disappear. Keith pressed forward, moving his lips against Lance’s just as desperately and weaving his fingers through Lance’s hair. He heard a soft moan, and knowing that it was _Lance_ who’d made that sound _all from a kiss_ made his blood surge.

Keith pushed off the couch, his lips still pressed firmly against Lance’s, and reversed their positions, pushing Lance into the couch and sliding his hands down the sides of Lance’s face, his neck, down his clothed chest. Lance’s mouth opened with a groan and Keith took advantage of it, plunging his tongue inside. Their tongues met and swirled together, running jolts of electricity down his spine and collect in a pool of heat at his groin, which he pressed down just as Lance thrusted his hips up. The sudden contact made them both gasp and moan, and then they had to pull back because they suddenly couldn’t breathe and Keith’s head was spinning and he felt like he was under a spell with the way Lance looked up at him through a hooded gaze, mouth still open and wet, a bright red flush glowing off his face as he panted heavily and oh, _god_ , how he’d been wanting this for as long as he could remember.

They were staring at each other as they continued to breathe heavily, trying to catch their breath, when Lance suddenly threw an arm over his eyes and broke into a staccato laugh.

“Whoa,” he said between laughs, arm lifting from his eyes to rest at his brow. “That was… intense.”

“Yeah,” Keith breathed, studying the way Lance’s lips were red and swollen.

“Shit, Keith, I…” Lance’s voice wavered, suddenly looking like a bundle of nerves. _“Shit,”_ he just said, staring into Keith’s eyes.

“Lance, I—” Keith swallowed and somehow found the guts to say: “I really want to kiss you again.”

Lance’s eyebrows shot up, and then he was giving a tittering laugh. His fingers were tracing along Keith’s jaw. “Yeah, we—” His voice cracked. “We should… just play along, right? For the rest of the night?”

Keith froze. Something cold gripped his stomach. His head swarmed with a dozen thoughts, none of them good. Did he— Did Lance just— Did Lance _not know_? Did he think this was all just a— That Keith had _kissed him_  for a—

The coldness twisted his stomach, making him feel sick, and he before he knew it, he was standing up.

Lance’s hand was like a vice at his wrist, pulling him back and stuttering desperately, “ _Shit_ , Keith, wait— I didn’t mean— I didn’t _know_ this was—”

Keith screwed his eyes shut as he wrenched away. “Just, _stop_ ,” he heard himself croak out, and he tried to focus on breathing and trying to get himself together because dammit he _knew_ , he _knew_ he shouldn't have come, he _knew_ this was a bad idea; he _knew_ this was all a _mistake_.

When he opened his eyes, he was frozen a second time, because there in the entryway of the wedding hall stood Shiro and Allura. They were dressed to the nines that made their shell-shocked expressions all the more powerful, and their faces quickly sought them out; Shiro gave Keith a devastated look and Allura sent an aggrieved stare at a point behind him and he just— he couldn’t _stand_ to be in this fucking building a second longer. **(8)**

Keith pushed past Shiro and Allura and stepped out into the dark.

 

* * *

Shiro  
  
Where are you?  
  
Do you want me to come get you?  
  
dont txt me  
  
i just wnna forget it happned  
  
sorry  


  

* * *

DONTPICKUP  
  
**Yesterday** 11:32 PM  
keith i’m sorry  
  
I’m really, relaly sorry can we talk please  
  
can we talk this out?  
  
**Today** 12:07 AM  
Are you seriously gonna be like this  
  
keith come on  
  
I’m sorry  
  
**Today** 12:44 AM  
I know youre reading my texts you fucker  
  
Stop ignoring me  
  
Quit beign such a pussy and answer my texts  
  
**Today** 1:37 AM  
KEITH ANSWER THE P HONE  
  
**Today** 1:49 AM  
WELL FUCK YOU TOO THEN  


Keith blocked Lance’s number from his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1_) The song in mention is “What’s My Name” by DMX. Listen [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90UjN98yzxc). 
> 
> (2) Nyma’s shades are [here](https://www.sunglassoasis.com/products/ray-ban-aviator-sunglass-bronze-purple-mirrored-rb-3025-167-1m?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=googlepla&variant=17379938369&gclid=CIfr8PGgws4CFQNkhgodtPIK0Q%20). 
> 
> (3) Lance’s outfit based on [this](http://g01.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1JKSuKFXXXXb0XpXXq6xXFXXXK/Aliexpress-Retail-Fashion-Men-Runway-Shirts-Smart-Shirt-Evening-Club-Party-Wear.jpg). 
> 
> (4) Keith's outfit based on [this](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/20/0c/8f/200c8f983e1ead51cc3b8d117ea2b693.jpg).
> 
> (5) Constanza’s dress found [here](http://www.bestdressmart.com/simple-white-a-line-princess-v-neck-organza-beach-destination-wedding-dresses-with-lace-mw381g.html). 
> 
> (6) Hunk’s outfit is [here](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e1/5a/08/e15a08a71317d1692266cda47bf03d42.jpg). 
> 
> (7) Pidge’s outfit is [here](https://cdn.lookastic.com/looks/crew-neck-sweater-dress-shirt-dress-pants-pumps-sunglasses-necklace-original-4367.jpg)
> 
> (8) Space Couple's outfits are [here](http://www.onesimplegown.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/mens-silver-black-fashion-wedding-suit-blazer-trouser-D07.jpg) and [here](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b7/e6/c8/b7e6c829bddb8488d968f573f3ca1e89.jpg).


	6. Lance flies out and Keith is a little bitch (and Nyma is fucking crazy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let’s go, Kiki! This white girl’s got things to do!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHMYGOD thank you so much for all your comments. To a writer, a comment/review is like surprising someone with a puppy. I HAD SO MANY SURPRISE PUPPIES FROM THE LAST CHAPTER IT WAS LIKE DROWNING IN PUPPIES. IT WAS AMAZING ;A;

On the day Lance flew out of the city for good, Keith did something he thought he’d never do of his own free will.

He texted Nyma. **(1)**

Queen Nykki  
  
you free today?  
  


He didn’t get a reply until about an hour later, when he finally crawled out of bed.

Queen Nykki  
  
boy you must be sick in the head to ask me that  
  
but no not really  
  
gotta go to queens  
  
on second thought  
  
you good for a lil smash n dash?  
  


 

Keith checked the clock. It read 4:12 PM.

i'm not drinking. it's still light out  
  
sweetie i aint drinking either  
  
be out in thirty  
  
we bout to have some fun  
  
bring some gloves  
  
and wear long sleeves ;*  
  
why?  
  


Keith didn’t get an answer back. But he pulled the thinnest long-sleeved shirt he had over his head and stuffed his gloves into an old Nike drawstring bag anyway.

 

* * *

 

Nyma showed up an hour late, rolling in in a blue Benz convertible with music blasting from the speakers. **(4)** Keith knew she was coming when he heard a jerky beat with a heavy, thumping bass accompanied by Beyoncé informing the world that _“a diva is a female version of a hustler, of a hustler, of a, of a hustler_ — _”_

Some guy across the street whistled loudly at her. She flipped him off without turning her head, professional bitch-face in full-on mode behind her trademark purple aviators.

Uncertainty knotted in Keith’s stomach. What was he _doing?_ Why’d he text her? Why’d he even agree to come out with her? This was a bad, _bad_ idea.

She stopped her car right in the middle of street and shouted at him: “Let’s go, Kiki! This white girl’s got things to do!”

Keith hesitated at the front steps of his apartment for a few seconds. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily, then flew down the steps and crossed the street to jump into her car, resigned to his fate.

 

* * *

 

Getting out to Queens at this time of the day was hectic and slow, but they were finally cruising down the Long Island Expressway by the time the clock ticked closer to 6. Neither one of them had spoken a word to each other in the hour they spent together, letting Nyma’s phone fill up the silence instead with hip-hop, R&B, and rap music peppered occasionally with Cyndi Lauper and Laura Branigan every now and then. **(5)**

Their silence was tense and terribly awkward. Keith still had no idea why he’d texted her in the first place. He’d planned on re-stocking the fridge, heading down to Aveda to see if Coran needed help training the cosmetology students and mentor a few in their feathering and layering techniques, or maybe help them experiment with accent coloring.

But he did none of that. He stayed in bed all day, staring at the clock and slowly counting down the time until it was 7 PM. Finally, when there was only four hours left, and he was hit with the urge to get out, to get dressed, to see him, _just one last time_ — when that urge hit, he reached out to the only person he knew who’d never be with _him_ on his last day here.

They’d never gotten together on their own before, and Keith wasn’t really sure how to explain to Nyma that the reason he’d texted her was because he didn’t want to see Lance and because he also _did_ want to see Lance— and that, because of how much he still wanted to see him, he was desperate for someone to take him far, far away before his emotions got the better of him and made him do something stupid again.

Like kiss him goodbye. Like tell him he loved him.

The tightness in his chest coiled every minute that stretched on in silence, knowing that every minute he was with Nyma in the car it was one minute closer to never, ever seeing Lance ever again.

By the time they merged into the Van Wyck Expressway, Rihanna had come on to croon about _“work, work, work, work, work.”_ That’s all he got from the song; Keith couldn’t follow her patois well enough to pick out what she was saying, but he felt some kind of bitterness and longing that lay within the layers of her words and he latched onto it.

Just as the Benz took an exit off the Van Wyck to get onto College Point boulevard, Nyma yanked the aux cord from her phone and cut the music.

“Okay, Kiki. What’s got your panties in a twist?”

Keith did the mature thing and stared out the window, pretending he didn’t hear her.

“The last time we hung out like this was in high school. And even then, it was only because Lance was between us and he wouldn’t shut up about making sure his favorite girlfriend got along with his favorite brofriend. So what’s up?”

Keith continued to stare out the window.

“I swear to fucking god, I’ll turn on that lame playlist Lance made for me in high school if you don’t start talking.”

Suddenly, a slow and funky synthpop beat started playing. A male voice started singing in a smooth, high voice— _“Last night, I had the strangest dream; I sailed away to China—_ ” Keith recognized the track immediately, and went to slam his hand on the off button of the radio. Nyma sent his hand away with a sharp slap. **(6)**

“Start talking, Kiki,” she cackled. “Your misery drowns my hate for this cheesy train wreck called a song.”

Keith pressed his fingers to his temples. “Okay, okay! Just—” He slapped his hand against one of the speakers. “Turn it off!”

She did. The music died and the only sound in his ears now was the rumbling of tires over a road stripped of its asphalt as the city readied it for a new coat of tar. Dust kicked up in the air, but it wasn’t so bad that it was choking them. He let a few moments of silence tick by before blurting out:

“I kissed Lance.”

He thought, maybe, that saying it out loud would be therapeutic. But all it did was rip his fucked-up sob story right out through his mouth, delivered in sloppy, chopped pieces.

“It was at the wedding, weeks ago. I— I was his _date._ To make his mom happy. We— It wasn’t real, at the time, and he didn’t know how I— He never knew. But I thought, when we were sitting together, I thought there was something _there_ , and so I kissed him. And he just thought it was some kind of _game_. Like we were just playing out some trope like it wasn’t fucking real and that I didn’t actually care about him. And he— That _fucking_ idiot didn’t know that I— That it wasn’t a game for me. It never was.”

There was no sense of calm that came over him, like he thought there’d be. Instead, he was left triggered and agitated, his nerves tangled in a restless, hyper-sensitive mess. He didn’t know what was wrong — talking usually _did_ help him, especially when it was long overdue. But this time, it seemed to have made it worse. His hands were fists in his lap and he was clenching his teeth and goddammit, he was just so angry at himself because he didn’t know what to do.

“Well,” Nyma said softly, “I guess we finally have something in common, huh?”

Keith’s laughter came in short, disbelieving bursts, some of the tension dispersing from his system in those puffs of air and finally allowing his hands to unclench. “Yeah? I guess so.”

Nyma folded her aviators and tucked them into the front of her shirt. “You know… I’m not really good with stuff like this, either. For me, it’s either get on board or get fucked, y’know? It’s easier that way, I think. That’s why Lance and I don’t talk anymore. Not after what we did to each other.

“I mean, yeah, I didn’t really like him all that much, and I was only going to prom with him cause Rolo ditched the school scene months ago and I got sick of his shit… And Lance was real sweet to me those last few months, ya know? Even more than usual. And he felt _real_ , for the first time, and not like some stupid fuckboy right outta Jersey Shore like he usually was. I thought I’d give him a chance, at least. I mean, he’d been trying to get with me since freshman year even after I walked all over him for four years.

“But that motherfucker actually stood me up — and to see _you_ , of all people. I waited all night for him to come by, and I finally just got my shit together and called Rolo to come get me, and we jacked up that display case in the school where his team had all those football trophies and whatever. And the whole time we did that, I was thinking, _damn_ , like, I couldn’t believe he fucking did that to me.”

Keith let Nyma talk, listening to her quietly. He’d never really had a reason to like Nyma until Shay softened her up in college, so up until then he’d only ever heard one side of her. She’d been a real cut-throat bitch; still was, from what he’d heard. But listening to her now, when it was just the two of them in her car, he found that he really got her, and she got him. They were similar like that, especially with their experiences around _him._

Nyma suddenly gave a barking laugh. “Ha! And now _he’s_ the one that gets to go make his dreams come true,” she said acidly. “Karma never read her own fucking rules. Or maybe someone killed her.”

“Or she doesn’t exist,” he supplied, surprising himself as he said it out loud. He hadn’t meant to follow so closely to her train of thought.

“That fucking sucks ass,” said Nyma, turning smoothly around a corner and driving through a street of shuttered warehouses. “He’s flying out soon, isn’t he? When’re we finally rid of that airhead?”

Keith sucked in a breath. “In twenty-three minutes. His flight’s at 7.”

Nyma fell silent. She didn’t say anything for a long while; no laughter, no snort, no nothing. “Damn,” she just whispered, staring straight ahead. “Damn.”

“Yeah,” he heard himself croak. Keith swallowed and pressed a hand to his eyes, which were starting to sting. His headache came back again, a dull ache that pounded against the inside of his forehead to the beat of his heart.

He felt a feather-light touch on the hand still in his lap.

“You okay?” he heard. He was touched by the genuine concern in her voice.

“No,” he answered, honest.

She squeezed his hand tight. “Me neither.”

The Benz continued down the street in silence.

 

* * *

 

It finally occurred to him, when the car was descending into a dark, basement parking lot, that this whole thing — this whole drive way out to some nowheresville in Queens just off the expressway — was fucking weird.

He hadn’t really thought about why Nyma was bringing her car out to a neighborhood of empty warehouses until she abruptly stopped the car right in the middle of the lot and killed the engine.

Nyma reached across his lap to open the glove compartment in front of him and withdrew a thick wad of bills, all _Franklins_ , and holy _shit_ —

“Chill out, Kiki,” said Nyma.

Keith wasn’t having it. “Chill _out?!_ Nyma, what the fuck is this?! How much do you even have there? And where the fuck are we?!”

“Hey.” Nyma slapped the wad of bills against his cheek and gave him a surly look. “Quit freaking out. You won’t get in trouble or anything, don’t worry. At least, not anymore.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “‘Cause we _bonded_.”

Hearing one of Lance’s stupid catchphrases coming out of the mouth his ex-girlfriend who just drove Keith out to the middle of fucking nowhere in a Benz and was now hitting his face with what was probably drug money made him laugh because _damn_ , this was fucking _jacked_ ; this was so, _so_ , messed up.

“See? You’re having fun already,” Nyma said in a teasing voice, dumping the cash in a small purse. She winked at him before getting out of the car. “Wait here, okay? I’ll be quick.”

Keith watched Nyma sashay towards a booth in the distance. _Trust no one_ , he heard Lance’s sinful whisper in his head. _This is a bad, bad idea_ , he recalled telling himself earlier this morning.

But as he sat in the car and thought about Nyma and thought about their talk, about how she’d been scorned and how he was played, and as he watched Nyma talk to the man in the booth and come back looking like she’d won a million dollars, he thought, for one wild second— _I can trust her. I can trust Nyma._

And then she opened the trunk of the Benz and pulled out a sledgehammer.

His heart nearly stopped. “What the _fuck—”_

“Get out, Kiki, it’s time to get smashin’,” Nyma said, shutting the trunk with a loud slam. “You brought gloves, right?”

“What the fuck are you doing?! Are you for _real_ , right now?!”

Nyma wrenched open the door to the passenger’s side. “I’m as real as they come, babe. And didn’t I tell you to chill?” She sent him another wry look. “Or maybe I should say, _‘cool your jets, Keith’_.”

Keith scowled, but got out of the car.

Nyma took out a pair of thick gloves from her purse and tossed her bag to the side as she pulled the gloves on her hands. She nodded in his direction. “Take your bag with you, Kiki. You’re not gonna wanna keep that in there in a few seconds.”

He grabbed it and carried it out. The moment he took a good five steps away from the Benz, Nyma ran forward and swung the sledgehammer right into the headlights of her car.

Keith froze, watching Nyma struggle to pull the metal head of her weapon free. She managed to get it out with a few grunts, and slammed it back in with full force. The crunch of thick plastic and the loud, banging thud of metal rang in his ears, and Keith had no idea what to do or say besides, “What the _fuck?”_

Nyma didn’t look like she even heard him because all she did was pull the sledgehammer right out again and walk to the side of the car. She raised it over her head with both hands and swung down, snapping off one of the rear-view mirrors with a furious shout, and continued on her rampage.

She was pounding the mallet along the side of the car when Keith’s head finally kicked into gear. “What the fuck are you doing to your car?!”

Nyma answered between every swing of her sledgehammer. “THIS!” **_BANG_ ** “ISN’T!” **_BANG_ ** “MY!” **_BANG_ ** “CAR!” **_BANG_ **

Keith’s mind threw a fit. _A psychopath;_   _you’re hanging out with a psychopath._

**_BANG_ **

Nyma stopped, breathing harsh and heavy pants as she leaned her weight against the trunk of the car and dropping the sledgehammer to the ground. She was grinning madly, eyes alight with something he’d never seen on another person before, and in the next second she was standing up straight and sporting a dazzling smile that, on any other girl with her features, Keith wouldn’t hesitate to call “beautiful.” Now, it was just unnerving.

He understood now, why Lance stopped talking to her.

“It’s Rolo’s,” Nyma answered, picking up the sledgehammer again. “Get on board or get fucked, remember? I told you, I’m sick of his shit. But I still love the guy. Now, probably not, I don’t know. He owes me a lot of money for whatever the fuck he’s gotten himself into. And instead of paying me back when he gets the cash, he goes out and gets this little babe. Well, he’s not having her anymore. She’s _mine.”_

Nyma took one more swing, hitting the mallet right on the trunk of the car and crunching the metal into one of the tail lights. She let the metal head of the sledgehammer clang to the floor, and dragged it behind her as she walked over to him.

Keith let her stand right in front of him, not flinching even when she reached over with one hand and harshly patted the side of his face in what she probably thought was a loving gesture, and offered the sledgehammer to him with the other.

He stared down at the weapon in bewilderment.

Nyma grinned. “You wanna take a swing?”

Keith’s brow furrowed and he stared at her. “What?” he asked, dazed, because he was trying very hard not to scream out how this was _insane_ , this was _crazy_ , this was _psychotic._

Nyma pursed her lips and took on a solemn stare. “His flight,” she said suddenly. “It’s almost time. You got maybe five minutes left. And then he’s gone.”

That hit him harder than the way Nyma hit Rolo’s car. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. A sudden coldness gripped his heart, chilling his blood and spreading numbness all over his body. With a start, he remembered, for some _fucking_ reason, the way Lance had looked at him that night, that soft, stunned look on his face before the wedding, before the family had come to shower them with love, before they’d smeared lipstick on each other’s faces and laughed, before Lance told him that he trusted him, _always_ ;  before they’d kissed. And he couldn’t get it out of his head.

He felt someone squeeze his hand, and gently curl it around the wooden length of the sledgehammer. “I saved the windshield for you,” he heard Nyma say. “That’s the best part.”

He nodded, still feeling numb and not quite certain if he was grasping the sledgehammer right because it felt so heavy in his hands. He dragged it on the floor as he went up to the car, which was blue and made him realize just now how it was as blue as Lance’s eyes, dark and stormy and brilliant.

He remembered how he’d kissed him, and how Lance had kissed him back with a pressing need, making him think Lance wanted it — wanted _him_ — beyond what they were playing, beyond what was set for that evening, and his blood surged hot and cold because he _hated_ him and he _loved_ him, and he _hated_ him and he _loved_ him, and he _hated_ him and he—

Keith screamed as he swung the sledgehammer right into the windshield. The glass shattered, and half of it fell through as the mallet crunched right into the dashboard. Keith stared at it, at the glass shards strewn all over, stared at the remaining broken shards still sticking to the metal frame, and then he picked up the sledgehammer and swung it again, and again, and again, and again, going down the side of the car and snapping off the other side mirror and cracking the dashboard and puncturing the other headlight and crunching the plastic and he hit, and he hit, and he hit, and he hit.

He felt the sledgehammer slipping, his fingers and hands hot and slick, and there was sweat even on his brow and the back of his neck and everywhere on him and he was falling down with a wracked sob he didn’t know he was capable of making. Glass shards bit into his knees and his legs but he didn’t care, and his hands were stinging and he was crying, shaking so hard he couldn’t stop until Nyma came and wrapped him up in her arms.

“I got you, Keith,” she said, pressing her cheek to his hair and holding him tight. “I’ve been there too. We’re in this together.”

He cried harder.

 

* * *

 

It was late when he finally got home.

He jammed his key into the lock and opened the door and saw that Pidge was still up, holding a box of leftover Chinese and staring blankly at her laptop’s screen. When she noticed him, she looked at him quietly for second and got up, sticking her chopsticks into the box of lo mein. “Hey,” she said, putting the food down.

Keith closed the door behind him. “Hey,” he said back.

She walked up to him carefully, looking at him as if she were afraid he’d turn around and bolt out any second now. “We… We missed you today. At the airport.”

Keith dropped his gaze to the floor between them.

“Lance… Lance says he’s sorry.”

There was a bit of anger that came at that, but it died down fast when he just raked his nails through his scalp and sighed. “I don’t wanna talk about… about him.”

Pidge came over, her bare feet thudding against the carpet in the hall, and pulled him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” she said into his shirt.

“It’s okay,” he said back, and then surprised himself when he added, “I’ll be okay,” because he felt — truly felt — that that sounded believable.

And he actually believed it, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Keith added Nyma's number when he and Hunk hung out with Nyma and Shay during the wedding reception. Nyma made Keith add her as "Queen Nykki" and demanded photographic evidence to prove he added it as per requested. He was too lazy to change it back.
> 
> (2) NYC is divided into 5 "boroughs" or "regions." Queens is the a more suburban part of NYC. [Here's a map](http://www.sandhogs147.org/ULWSiteResources/sandhogs147/Resources/image/Jurisdiction-Map.jpg) of the area.
> 
> (3) "Smash n dash" isn't an official term; I was trying to think of a slang term for smashing up a car, but I couldn't find anything that didn't make it obvious. So I just made one up. /o\
> 
> (4) Nyma's car is [here](http://o.aolcdn.com/dims-global/dims3/GLOB/legacy_thumbnail/750x422/quality/95/http://www.blogcdn.com/slideshows/images/slides/213/905/6/S2139056/slug/l/2014-mercedes-e-class-cabrio-01-1.jpg).
> 
> (5) There is strong symbolism in the music Nyma listens to that reveals more about her as a person. I'll go into it some other time. Or maybe you'll figure it out. :V
> 
> (6) Listen to this amazing playlist [here!!!!](http://8tracks.com/sinelanguage/lance-s-awful-car-trip-playlist)


	7. Pidge moves out and Keith stays a little bitch (but Hunk is hunkydory)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re never gonna guess whose room I’m in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I need to apologize to y'all because I feel like I just catfished you or something. This was just supposed to be a fake-dating fic, and. . . . I honestly have no idea what the fuck happened that it got out of hand this way. Damn. ;A;
> 
> ALSO! I fucking FORGOT to tell you guys where Lance is going??? It was in the second chapter in the original draft, but for SOME REASON I thought it was a BRILLIANT IDEA to take it out???? Like, I don't even understand OTL **Lance is going to the Galaxy Garrison.** He'll be there for a few years until his training is complete.
> 
> And another thing: a lot of the details in this story aren't stated out right. My head doesn't work that way, and my writing style is more literary than anything; important details are weaved within the story, certain phrases are repeated, and some things are referenced later on or way before they come to light.
> 
> And also, **Keith is a big, melodramatic angry gay baby** , so don't always take him literally. Lance isn't really "gone forever." Keith just feels like he is.

Twelve months later, Keith found himself moving out.

Not of his own accord, though. Definitely not of his own accord; he liked rooming with Pidge. She respected his privacy but cared about him enough to drag him outside every now and then. He’d liked it even better when Shiro had been with them, even if that had made sleeping arrangements a little weird sometimes, but hey — that’s how they all “bonded” in the first place.

But bonding or not, time moved on and people had to follow it. And tomorrow, Pidge was following it through two time zones, all the way to Arizona’s Black Mesa.

She was leaving for the Garrison. She, too, was going to make her dreams come true.

They kept their last few days together busy by getting ready to vacate their apartment. Keith had packed up his clothes, stripped his walls bare, and stuffed whatever was left into two duffel bags. He didn’t have much to begin with, so everything had been done in a few days. The group had one last dinner together, one Pidge had been teary throughout, and they had finished that night with smiles.

He wasn’t sleeping when he got back to his room, and he doubted Pidge was either. Especially not with the party happening on their floor again. A lot can change in a year, and over the course of twelve months, the parties decided to make it a change for the worst; his walls practically shook with Karetus and San Holo, and the building’s super was allegedly being paid off not to care. He had no idea why nobody just called the police. He had no idea why he and Pidge never did, either.

He heard the loud creaking of Pidge’s door as it opened, and that was his cue to roll out of bed and open his door as well. He stood in the doorway and found her already standing in the hall. They took one look at each other before they spoke at the same time:

“I’ll get the ice cream.” “I’ll get the laptop.”

The only thing left in the freezer was a pint of green tea Häagen-Dazs. Pidge staked claim on it the day before, stating loudly that she was gonna have it for breakfast because _“tomorrow’s my last day, dammit, and the Garrison’s got shitty ice cream so I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.”_

He got to the couch with the ice cream and two spoons from the drying rack just as Pidge came back from her room with her giant laptop. They sat through about ten episodes of Steven Universe, sitting side by side together and greedily gulping ice cream in comfortable silence. The ice cream was gone by the third episode, and they left the container and spoons on the table next to the laptop.

It was on their tenth episode, while Steven was floating in deep space inside his pink bubble, when Keith felt Pidge press into his side. At first, he thought she had fallen asleep, but he felt her small hand dig into the fabric of his shirt, clenching it hard in a tight fist, as she leaned her forehead into his arm.

Keith hit the spacebar and paused the video. “Pidge?”

Pidge didn’t respond.

He tried again; “Pidge?”

“I’m fine,” she said, and Keith caught the slight waver in her voice that shot him with unease. “Just give me a sec.”

Keith stayed absolutely still for a moment. Then, he asked slowly: “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

Her shoulders started to shake.

He panicked. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know how to comfort someone when they cried, but then he remembered when he’d cried in a basement lot twelve months ago and how he’d finally gotten himself together, so he shifted slightly to turn towards her, even if that meant jarring her from her position so that she was no longer able to hide her face on his arm. He took one look at the way she was trying so hard to pull herself together, desperately holding in her tears even as they were leaving wet trails down her face, and he opened his arms to close around her and hold her and pressed his cheek to the top of her head.

“I got you,” he said, recalling Nyma’s exact words, because they had calmed him down. “I got you.”

She cried into his neck, and he felt the wetness of tears and snot and everything else that came with sadness drenching the side of his neck, his shoulder, his shirt, and seeping hot and cold into his body. He tightened his hold on her, when his heart started weighing heavily in his chest because _this was their last day together_ for a long time.

“I’m gonna miss you,” he said, meaning every word of it. “Thanks for letting me stay with you.”

That made her cry harder, but he didn’t panic this time, he just kept holding her tight.

“I wouldn’t have made it out here if it weren’t for you,” he continued, because he’d wanted to tell her how much he appreciated her for so long, ever since she let him stay when he was first kicked out of his home for ditching pre-law at Fordham to become a hair stylist. That was back when Shiro was still living here, and back when it was all about who could pay rent this month, and who had a car, and who had a job, and how much water they could use, how much food they could buy, how much was insurance nowadays, and just a whole whirlwind of _“how much?” “how much?” “how much?”_

He smiled into her hair, feeling her sobs settle into jerky hitches and loud sniffling. “Thanks, Pidge. For everything.”

She surprised him by solidly thumping a fist on his shoulder. “Don’t you forget it,” she hiccuped, voice muffled by his shirt and neck. “And…”

Pidge wriggled in his arms, and he let her go. He waited patiently as she wiped her face on the sleeves of her sweatshirt and pulled her hood back over her head.

“Don’t forget about Lance, too,” was all she said when she spoke again, making him go absolutely still.

She was staring at him with eyes wide and red, but locking him in a firm, pleading look.

Keith didn’t say anything, caught slightly off guard. She hadn’t brought him up for months. Nobody did, at least around him. And he didn’t know how to feel or even _what_ to feel about her suddenly bringing Lance up, here, on this day, on her last day, the day before she, too, would fly out for her dreams.

He hadn’t heard Lance’s name spoken in so long, and when he finally did, he did… nothing. His hands didn’t shake. His eyes didn’t sting. His heart beat just fine, and he breathed evenly. He was okay, as he’d told Pidge, as he’d told himself, in their cramped apartment twelve months ago. He was actually okay.

And that, for some reason, terrified him.

“You okay?”

“What?” Keith looked her way. Had she followed his train of thought?

She shifted awkward in place, drawing her knees to her chest. “With moving back home. To your parents.”

Keith matched her body language, folding his arms over his knees and leaning his chin on his arms. He thought about his mother, with whom he’d began to talk to again, and his father, who was still distant. “Yeah, I… I guess. We’re— We’re good, now. Mostly.”

Pidge reached out to him, gently touching his arm. “Promise you’ll keep in touch,” she said softly. “With me, at least.”

Keith nodded his head, slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “I will.”

Pidge pursed her lips. “Even if I Skyped you?”

Keith laughed at that, and he let her punch him in the shoulder. “Yeah,” he said again. “I will.”

Pidge finally smiled.

 

* * *

Queen Nykki  
  
**Today** 11:31 AM  
you still looking for a place to stay?  
  
i'm good. thanks  
  
because i rented it out already  
  
oh thank god  
  
Are you fucking kidding me??  
  
the girl offered triple what you’d pay  
  
i couldn’t say no  
  
i wanted the cash  
  
i hate you  
  
no hard feelings right?  
  
**Today** 12:09 PM  
yo kiki  
  
you better not cut me out  
  
cause then you’ll be the one getting cut  
  
**Today** 4:12 PM  
i'm working gtfo  
  
❤  
  


 

* * *

  **(NOTE: KOREAN TRANSLATIONS PROVIDED AT THE END)**

“Taeyang-ah!” **(1)**

Keith was slurping noodles when his mom called for him. He quickly stuffed his mouth with a chopstick load of spicy bibim naengmyeon before shooting out of the kitchen and looking for his mom. She sounded far away, so she was probably upstairs. **(2)**

He walked up the stairs and called out to her: “Umma? Uhdee ssuh?” The damn house was too big; he had no idea how she expected him to know where she was if she didn’t tell him.

A purr and meow from below alerted his attention. He scooped up the white cat rubbing against his legs and gently carried it in his arms. He called out again: “Umma?”

“Stop shouting,” his mother said, “Anbang ae issuh. Iri waba, yuhgee mol boyuh joogoh shipdah.”

She wanted to show him something? The cat squirmed in his arms and he let it go before it could scratch its way to freedom. He let it weave around his legs as he stepped carefully down the hall to his parents’ room. He found his mom sitting on the floor in front of a closet, a large book with glossy pages opened on her lap.

It was his high school yearbook.

He stilled for a moment in the doorway, watching his mom squint down at the pages filled with the portraits of every student in his graduating class.

She seemed to know he was there somehow, and beckoned him over with a hand without picking her head up. She pointed at a picture, waiting until he was sitting next to her before she spoke. “I knew it,” she said proudly in Korean, tapping her finger on a portrait. “Here, look at this.”

He did as he was told. He leaned over and looked at the photo she was pointing at.

It was some girl he didn’t know. Her name was Ji-Hae Moon.

She was Korean.

He sat back and rolled his eyes. _Oh, lord,_ he thought, _here we go again._

“I saw Ji-Hae’s mom at H-Mart today,” she said slowly in English, and then quickly switched back to Korean. “‘How’s your daughter?’ I asked her, ‘Is she well?’ You know what Ji-Hae is doing? She’s studying law at NYU, did you know that? She’s trying to be like you.” His mom threw her head back and laughed. “Bah! I told her, ‘You know? My son went to Fordham for pre-law. But he’s so smart, he left that boring place and now he’s the best hair stylist in New York City. He cuts hair for celebrities, like Nicki Minnajuh.’” **(3)**

He smiled. “It’s _Minaj_ , umma.” He never cut Nicki Minaj’s hair. He just swept it off the floor after Allura did, which is what he’d told his mom literally seconds after the rap artist paid them both generously, promptly scheduled a follow-up appointment, and went to Magnolia’s next door. But his mom refused to tell the version that didn’t involve her son cutting the hair of a famous rapper.

“Ah, okay. Minaji. She’s the one who wears all those colors? I like her, she looks like she’s a good and happy woman. Oh, and look—” She turned back a page. “Here’s your best friend.”

Keith was suddenly face to face with Lance; except, this Lance was eighteen years old and smiling awkwardly up at him from a page inside a book. Lance had always complained that the photographer never gave a proper warning and demanded a free retake for weeks. He never got it.

“He went to space? I think that’s what his mom told me. I’m not sure.”

Keith laughed, the sound breathy and fond. “No, umma, he went to the Garrison. It’s a…” He stopped and switched to Korean so he could better explain. “It’s a training facility run by the Galaxy Alliance. He’s training to be an aero-space explorer. It’s… kind of like an astronaut.”

His mother nodded thoughtfully. “Oh, I see. That means he’s very smart, right? I knew he would be, he’s your friend after all. Does he have a girlfriend?”

Keith hesitated. “No, umma, he’s… I don’t know.”

She looked at him for the first time since he stepped into the room. “I don’t know?” she repeated in English. She spoke, in Korean: “But he’s your best friend.”

Keith didn’t know how to answer her.

She kept her eyes on him for a moment longer, then went back to the book and pointed at another picture on the opposite page. “I saw him the other day, with his dad. They were at Home Depot looking at shelving units. They were going to re-do something in the garage. Jae-Young likes to work with his hands, that’s why he went to Cornell. He’s an architect now, did you know that? Also, he’s very handsome, don’t you think?”

“Sure?” he said, not knowing where she was going with this.

“He’s also gay.”

Keith stared at his smiling mother with an odd mix of horror and disbelief. He was also slightly touched. But still a little weirded out. “Umma, no.”

“But he’s so handsome! Oh, but there’s also Jeffrey, he went to Yale. And Yong-Su, you remember him from 5th grade, right? And did you know? Chan-Bin is coming back for Thanksgiving — he was the one you met in…”

It was only out of familial obligation and love that Keith stayed sitting beside his mother as she rolled out a very long list of Korean boys she somehow knew were gay.

He made up his mind that November afternoon, only three months after he’d moved in, that he absolutely, positively needed to move the fuck out.

 

* * *

Hunkydory  
  
hey  
  
hey! what’s up?  
  
everything going alright?  
  


Keith was in a chair in front of his laptop, the family’s cat asleep on his lap, as he carried out this text conversation with Hunk. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply before shooting the big question.

can i still room with you?  
  


Immediately, he saw Hunk typing a response. He stared at the three dots, waiting anxiously for the reply.

the room’s always been yours since you first asked, bro  
  
let me know when i should bring the car over  
  


Gratitude washed over him in waves. He felt a smile break over his face as he re-read the text. Hunk, he thought, was the absolute best.

thank you  
  
so much  
  
anytime, bro  
  


Keith tossed his phone on the bed and sighed loudly, relieved. The cat stirred in his lap, blinking its eyes and flicking its tail this way and that. Then it sank its claws into his thighs.

He pushed it off and ignored it when it yowled betrayal at him.

 

* * *

 

“Heeeere it is!” cried Hunk, opening the door to his apartment. “My humble abode! Well, _our_ humble abode, now. Oh, and watch your step there — that plank’s loose; don’t trip on that. That happened when Shay and I dragged in a used bookshelf from a neighbor and we, uh, never fixed that plank in the floor. The super doesn’t know either, so that’s something to keep in mind if you see her. Or, not keep in mind, I guess, since we’re avoiding telling her altogether.” 

Keith was only half-listening to Hunk, choosing instead to take a look at every inch of space he could see of the apartment from the entryway. He’d come here often, a long time ago, and it was jarring to see how so much had changed already.

The ripped bargain-sale couch that was once taking up space in the middle of the den was replaced by an actual sofa and a plush rug with swirling tan and white designs laid out in front. There was a glass coffee table in front of the sofa, and the LCD TV with the chipped corner on the bottom resting atop a brand new stand. There were two plants on either side of the room, pressed snugly into the corners right in front of the veranda. Keith recognized them as the plants that were in Hunk’s room, and wondered why they were moved out to the den.

Along the right side of the wall was the bookshelf Hunk must’ve been talking about, as well as a tall shelving unit that seemed to be crammed with even more books. He recognized some of them: books by Cantor, Swanson, and Blair; documents translated from old germanic tribal languages and Latin, collected, referenced, and annotated by Tierney; and a book he knew all too well — that one on medieval military technology he almost got knocked out for, the one he just gave up on getting because it wasn’t worth the fuss anymore, the one Shay had hunted down at the used book store somewhere Midtown.

Was… Shay living here, now?

Hunk swallowed a gulp of beer as he kicked back on the sofa. “Huh? Oh, yeah, she moved in a long time ago. Don’t worry, we’re not loud. Much.” Hunk gave a cocky wink.

Keith cracked a grin, laughed a bit. He didn’t mind. He liked Shay. She was nice. And he liked seeing Hunk happy. There was something infectious about his cheer that made Keith felt like he was welcomed, no matter where they were together. Hunk was a great guy.

“You want one, bro?” Hunk raised the Bud Light in his hand.

Keith shook his head. He wasn’t really one for drinking.

Hunk scratched the side of his face. “So, uh… Guess you should start getting to the room, now, right?”

They each took one of the duffel bags from the entryway before walking to one of the rooms. Keith followed him slowly. His was very aware of the way his heart beat hard in his chest, no matter how hard he tried to pretend it wasn’t happening.

Hunk paused in front of the room for a second, his hand lingering on the doorknob. He turned to Keith. “Listen,” he started quietly, looking at him seriously, “I don’t mind if you wanna switch rooms.”

Keith stared hard at the closed door. “No,” he heard himself say, in a distant voice. “It’s okay.”

“You sure?”

Keith clenched his jaw. “It’s just a room,” he snapped, reaching over to grab the doorknob and shove the door open. He barreled right in, feet quick and loud on the bare floor, and then he slowly, just, stopped. And he stood, quietly, in the middle of the room.

Lance’s old room was bigger than he remembered. The air was stale, like it’d been kept a secret since its owner had vacated, and Keith wasn’t sure what to think about that. He took a look around, catching small, little things still in the room that flooded him with old memories, filling his head up with sounds of laughter and shouting and, sometimes, just silence.

There was a slight dent in the wall he and Lance had accidentally made while playing an angry game of catch with a stapler. The red sharpie marks Lance had drawn on the wall while trying to mount a shelving unit were still there, and the holes in the wall were filled in with drywall plaster. The bed was turned so that one side was against the wall and the headboard was facing the door, so Lance could roll right up to the wall and sleep with his head pressed against it just the way he liked.

“Keith?”

Hunk’s soft voice brought him back to a room stripped to its bare essentials. Keith dropped his duffel on the floor and turned to Hunk.

Hunk was looking carefully at him, reminding him of the way Pidge had stared at him all those months ago, when he came back the first time he hung out with Nyma.

“I should start unpacking,” he said. He was surprised by the strength in his voice.

And so was Hunk. He looked at him with a smile, but there was a look in his eyes that made Keith feel like maybe Hunk felt, somehow, an offence with how easily Keith had walked into Lance’s old room and declared such a thing.

“Sure, bro,” said Hunk, pulling away from the door frame. “Let me know if you need anything.”

With that, Hunk was gone and Keith was left alone.

He surveyed the room again, exhaustion suddenly weighing in his mind with each second he spent just looking around. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and pulled it out.

It was Nyma.

**Yesterday**  
cause then you’ll be the one getting cut  
  
**Yesterday** 4:12 PM  
i'm working gtfo  
  
❤  
  
**Today** 6:18 PM  
  
ayo, what’s up with you?  
  
i get all the way to your house and your mom says you moved out??  
  
(ಠ ∧ ಠ)ε/̵͇̿̿/’̿’̿ ̿   
  


He took a seat on the bare mattress, covered in a plastic casing that crinkled when he sank down on it. Keith swiped his thumb across her name in his contacts, and brought the phone up to his ear. He fell backwards on the bed as he waited for the call to connect, throwing an arm over his prickling eyes. Once the call picked up, Nyma’s voice came through like whiplash. _“You runnin’ out on me, Kiki?”_

Keith closed his eyes and breathed in, nice and slow, because _wow_ , how insane was _this?_ When he spoke, his voice sounded strained, which was weird because he just felt like. . . like laughing.

And he did, his mouth stretching across his face and his head swirling with some odd emotion as he just said, “You’re never gonna guess whose room I’m in.”

 

* * *

 

Keith couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled so much.

He and Hunk and Shiro had met for a round of beers down at the bar on their street when, out of the blue, Andrew Cloutier, the worm-eating champion from second grade, clapped a hand on Keith’s back.

“Whoa, is that really you?” Andrew laughed and clapped his back again. “It _is!_ Keith! Man, I can’t believe it’s been so long! Look at your hair, haha, what _is_ that?”

“Look at yours,” Keith returned, with no bite at all. “What’s with the pink?”

Andrew actually looked sheepish for a second. He ran his hands through his hair, dyed badly in what should have been a nice shade of pink. “Yeah, I lost a bet. Plus I was wrecked that night, hah— I was out celebrating my bro’s engagement. Can you believe Eric’s marrying Mary? That’s so crazy, isn’t it?”

The word “crazy” rubbed him the wrong way, but he was able to ignore it. Instead, Keith politely laughed, even if he had no idea who Eric or Mary was. “Hey, uh,” Keith turned to Hunk and Shiro, who’d been kindly just listening to them chat so far. “These are my friends— That’s Shiro over there, and this is—”

“Hunk!” Andrew said, grinning brightly. “Yeah, we met a _long_ time ago. You’re Lance’s buddy, right?”

Hunk and Shiro both froze for a moment, glancing briefly in Keith’s direction. Keith pretended not to notice.

Hunk managed a smile. “Uh, yeah. How you doin’, brah?”

“I’m just waiting on Christine to get off her shift,” said Andrew, pointing somewhere out in the bar. “Then I’ll be _really_ good, if you know what I mean.”

Hunk chuckled and Shiro just gave a courteous smile and nod.

Andrew tapped Keith on the arm and scanned the bar searchingly. “So where’s Lance? What’s he been up to lately? I got off Facebook years ago, and it’s really biting into staying fresh. I might get on again.”

Keith ignored the quiet looks he got from Hunk and Shiro. “He’s in Arizona, in the Garrison. He’s been there for a year now.”

Andrew’s eyebrows shot up. “Whoa, seriously? Wow, that’s… That’s pretty fucking awesome. Good for him, yeah? He’s been wanting to go there since we were still wettin’ the bed. Man, he’d never shut up about that place when we were little, and now he’s finally there. Shit, man, he must’a worked his ass off.”

“Yeah,” Keith heard himself saying, “He really did.”

Andrew bust out laughing. “Yo, dude, I can’t believe the kid who fucking agreed to see who could eat the most worms is _literally_ being a rocket scientist. Who would’ve thought, right?”

Keith felt himself smiling, mirth spreading in his chest as he remembered just how _stupid_ that dare was.

“‘Cause he was so stupid but smart at the same time and just, hah, just so _out there.”_

He heard himself chuckling. “Yeah,” he said, still laughing, “Yeah, he is.”

Andrew stayed with them, he and Keith swapping more stories about their elementary school years and how Lance did this, and Keith did that, and how Andrew did some other thing with them, and— oh, remember that time when Lance thought he was gonna die after swallowing watermelon seeds? How funny was that, right?

He and Andrew laughed through it all, along with Shiro and Hunk, and by the time Andrew had to go, Keith’s face was hurting from laughing so much and his chest filled with something nice and warm and he felt good — to be laughing like that, to just have fun again.

So he had no idea why Shiro and Hunk kept looking at each other with worry on their faces the whole time.

 

* * *

 

**KOREAN TRANSLATIONS**

   

> **Umma? Uhdee suh?**  
>  엄마? 어딨어?  
>  _Mom? Where are you?_

Keith is using the informal, colloquial way of asking where she is. Normally, "where are you?" is informally written as "uhdee issuh?" (어디 있어?) and formally written as "uhdee gaesaeyo?" (어디 계세요?). In some families, kids aren't expected to speak super formally to their parents, especially when they have a close bond. Keith speaks informally to his mom and formally to his dad, which is indicative of how his relationship with both parents is like.

> **Anbang ae itdah.  
>  ** 안방의 있다.  
>  (Lit) _I'm in the inner room._

This is how my parents have always referred to their room. It's supposed to have historical/cultural roots? Because the parents' room is the room you don't go to, and it's usually the room farthest in the house in a traditional Korean house.

> **Iri waba, yuhgee mol boyuh joogoh shipdah.**  
>  이리 와봐, 여기 몰 보여주고 싶다.  
>  _Come over here, there's something I want to show you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Lee Tae-Yang is the Korean name I've given Keith. "Tae" (태) can mean "great," "big," or "grand," depending on the hanjah character used. "Yang" (양) is "light," or "moon," also depending on hanjah. Together, "Tae-Yang" (태양) literally means "great light" and is often just translated as "great light of the sun."
> 
> The suffix "-ah," when attached to names, acts as a term of endearment. It's sort of like the Korean equivalent of the Japanese suffixes "-chan" and "-kun."
> 
> (2) Keith is eating a summer dish in winter because he's metal as fuck. Nah, jk, it's because it's really easy to make, lololol. You can find more info about bibim naengmyeon (비빔 냉면) [here](http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/bibim-naengmyeon).
> 
> (3) My mom pronounces Nicki Minaj like this _all. the time._ It kills me.


	8. Keith is still a little bitch and Pidge is DONE WITH THIS SHIT (aka the Skype chapter)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oooh, I’m getting jealous, Kiki. You’re not steppin’ out on your partner in crime, are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost at the riveting conclusion, folks!
> 
> I hope that you're noticing the changing dynamic between Keith & Nyma. It's really important to Keith's recovery. And as for why Lance hasn't contacted him... It's more like Keith has blocked him completely from his life. Because, as the titles have been pointing out, he's being "a little bitch" about this whole thing.

“This _can’t_ be legal.”

“Cool your jets, Kiki, this is practically harmless.”

“You’re breaking into a car.”

“So shut up and keep watch.”

Keith bristled but did nothing else. He leaned against the hood of the car and kept an eye out like he’d agreed to do.

For the record, he only agreed to _help_ her. She just never said what she needed help _with_. And by the time he’d found out, Rolo was long gone, having peeled out after dumping them out of a clunking SUV and shouting, _“my debt’s paid, so suck on this, bitch!”_ and whooping away.

They were in Queens again, in the parking lot of a large strip mall in College Point. Nyma had dug Keith’s knife into the top of the car door of the driver’s side to wedge it open, and was sliding a metal stick cut from an old clothes hanger down the gap. The curved end hooked around the manual lock from the inside, and in seconds, the door was opening and Nyma was getting in.

Keith wondered what the jail time was for stealing a car. He looked at the Target store several feet away while keeping an eye on the oblivious family hauling diapers and toys and three bags of food into the trunk of an SUV and wondered if it was worth getting thrown in jail for helping Nyma steal back a car for some girl out in Forest Hills. _No_ , his mind insisted, and he agreed by clenching his jaw. **(1)**

“Aren’t you done yet?” his groused, taking his eyes off the lot for a second to give Nyma a glare. She was too busy handling the wires inside the black sedan to see it. Which was good, because she’d be hissing at him that he was supposed to keep watch.

“Don’t rush me,” Nyma bit out at him.

Keith resisted the urge to scare her by pounding three times on the windshield, their sign to _get the fuck out_. Instead, he closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath.

This was harmless, he told himself. They were just getting someone’s car back for them. It was wrongfully stolen, anyway, and the girl’s ex _was_ crazy— crazier than Nyma. The girl needed help. His brain disagreed. _Then why didn’t she just call the police?_ Maybe she was scared. Maybe she didn’t want her ex to come looking for her after. **(2)**

 _Or maybe she’s crazy, too; just like Nyma,_ said his brain. But nobody was crazy like Nyma. Nobody.

_So why are you hanging out with her?_

Keith ran his hands over his face.

He didn’t know.

He’d seen what she can do; what she was willing to do. She thought stealing cars was harmless. She’d tied Rolo to her for months with just a cash debt. She even made Keith keep a car running while she lingered in an alley to high-five for cash.

He knew all the shit she did. He knew.

So why was he still hanging out with her?

The rumble of the car’s engine jolted his introspective thoughts. Quickly, Keith got off the car and shoved himself into the back seat.

“Aw, is the angry gay baby scared mama’s gonna crash again?”

Keith grit his teeth as he buckled up because _yes_ , he actually _was_. Scared, that is; he wasn’t admitting he was an angry gay baby. Which, weird enough, sounded exactly like something Pidge would say. He shook his head. “Can’t you ever do something normal for once?”

The car left the lot and got right onto the road for the Whitestone expressway. “Hey, I took you shopping, like, a year ago. I filled that quota.”

Keith narrowed his eyes, unimpressed.

Suddenly, his phone went off.

“Wow,” Nyma exclaimed with fake cheer, “Are you getting a call? So you _do_ have a life. That’s totes amazing.”

Keith ignored her in favor of checking his phone. Then he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and feeling a small part of him die, because Pidge was trying to Skype him and he did _not_ want her to know he still hung out with Nyma. Pidge _hated_ Nyma. And Keith was starting to see why.

“Nyma, pull over,” he said, not wanting Pidge to see him in the car because _“who’s car are you in?”_ was not a question he really wanted to lie to her about.

Nyma snorted. “Do I look like a Weasley to you? Road’s jammed right now, and I know you think I’m amazing but even _I_ have limits to the shit I can pull. Who’s calling, anyway? It’s not Shay, is it?”

Keith thought he heard an edge of agitation to Nyma’s voice towards the end, but he was probably wrong. “It’s Pidge,” he told her.

Nyma blew a raspberry and laughed. “That little shrimp? Hah! I can’t be _lieve_ she got into the Garrison. Like whaaat?”

Keith sent her a scathing look. “Shut up.”

Nyma cackled. “Oooh, I’m getting jealous, Kiki. You’re not steppin’ out on your partner in crime, are you?”

Keith pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just— Just keep your mouth shut, alright?”

“Noooo promises,” Nyma sing-songed irritatingly.

Keith kicked the back of her seat and ground his teeth when all Nyma did was say _“oooh, I didn’t know you were kinky, Kiki.”_ He closed his eyes and steadied himself with a deep breath, then put on a small smile as he accepted Pidge’s Skype call.

He froze.

It wasn’t Pidge.

It was Lance.

“Uh, _heeey_ , Keith,” Lance greeted with a shaky laugh. “It’s, uh. It’s been a while, huh?”

The entire car went silent.

Keith stared at the screen of his phone.

“Sooo, uh… How’ve you been? You look—” Lance’s gaze dropped off-screen for a split second. “You look good, man,” he said softly.

Keith swallowed, trying to find his voice. “Yeah,” he breathed, watching Lance’s eyes brightening a bit as Keith answered. “Yeah. You too, I guess.”

And then, a smile broke out on Lance’s face.

Seeing Lance look at him like that reminded him of how he’d looked when he told him he’d trusted him, and it made Keith’s throat tighten and his heart pound.

A look of curiosity came onto Lance’s face. “Dude, are you sitting in the backseat of a car?”

Keith blinked. “Uh. Yeah?”

“Did your mom get a new car or something? It looks nice, man. Oh, hey! Tell her I said hi. Wait, no!” Lance’s excited face got bigger on the screen as he came closer. “Let me talk to her! I haven’t seen her in so long!”

He froze again. He tore his gaze from Lance’s face and looked up. He saw, through the rear-view mirror, Nyma glance his way just once. And then it started sinking into him just who he was in the car with, and what he’d just done, and then all the shit he’d ever done with her, and how Lance had said to him that night, _“I trust you. Always.”_ And suddenly, he couldn’t look at Lance anymore because he felt sick to his stomach.

His words came out in a nervous stutter. “Lance, I— I can’t— I can’t talk right now. I… I gotta go.”

The pain that flashed over Lance’s face just as Keith ended the call seconds later tore something inside his chest, ripping up the scabbed wound inside his heart and letting it bleed all over again. He let his phone drop to the floor with a dull thunk, taking his face in his hands instead and leaning forward and trying hard to breathe slow, nice and slow; breathe slowly and calmly, one breath at a time, and _don’t cry, don’t you dare fucking cry_.

He didn’t cry, but he felt like he was teetering just on the cusp of that breaking point for a long, long time.

When he could finally breathe normally again, he realized that the car was very, very still. The engine was still on, but they weren’t moving.

Keith picked up his head, squinting at the light coming from outside, and blinked slowly and carefully at where they were.

They weren’t on the expressway anymore. They were in a quiet neighborhood, flanked on both sides with rows of identical-looking houses, all two stories tall and with a garage and a nice, clean front yard, each with a mailbox staked to the ground. One of the mailboxes was green, and the one next to that was blue, and the one next to that was pink, and the one next to that was—

“Hey.”

He looked up; the light from outside wasn’t blinding him as much anymore. He saw Nyma’s face, clearly, because she had taken off her seatbelt and had turned all the way around. She looked worried.

“You want some water?” she asked, pushing a half-empty Poland Spring bottle forward.

He blinked at it. Then, Keith took it slowly, uncapped it slowly, brought it to his lip slowly, and drank. The water filled a mouth he didn’t know had gone dry and slid down a throat he never felt turn raw.

He dropped the empty bottle to the floor.

“You want your phone back?”

He looked at it for a second. Then he looked at her.

Nyma’s eyes brimmed with some emotion he recognized as sorrow, as understanding.

He lowered his gaze to the floor as he took his phone.

“I put it on silent,” she said as he slipped it into his pocket. “Do you wanna go home?”

Keith squeezed his eyes shut. He thought about the car, he thought about the girl, hiding in some closet-sized room in Nyma’s house because she was too afraid of her ex. He thought about her crying, when she told them she needed the car back, she had to have the car back; _“I can’t miss another day at work, I need to work, my mom’s in the hospital, please— please, I just need my car back.”_

“Keith?”

He shook his head. Then stopped, because it felt like his head was filled with water and it made him dizzy.

He felt her touch his knee.

“Do you wanna go home?”

He breathed, slowly. “No. No, just— Just take the car back. Eileen needs the car.”

The car rumbled silently for a moment longer. Then, he heard Nyma turn around and buckle her seatbelt. He leaned back, closing his eyes briefly before staring out the window. In a few minutes, the car was going down the Whitestone expressway, then cruising along the Grand Central Parkway, and… going right past the exit to Forest Hills.

Keith furrowed his brow. “Where are you going?”

Nyma’s eyes stayed on the road. “I’m taking you home.”

Keith didn’t say anything back.

 

* * *

 

When he got home, Hunk was sitting on the sofa and talking to Shay on the phone. She was coming in late from work again; no surprise, seeing how she was the only social studies teacher at the middle school she worked at.

“Shay, let me call you back? Yeah, Keith’s here… Yeah, I know, I’ll talk to him. Love you too.”

Keith was pulling a bottle of water from the fridge when Hunk called out to him.

“Yo, Keith! I know you’re married to your Star Trek collection, but Shay was wondering if she could root through your comics this weekend. She swears she won’t— Hey, you alright? You don’t look so good.”

Keith pressed the bottle of water against his head and crashed on the sofa. “I’m fine,” he said, eyes closing and heaving a sigh. “Just had a long day, is all.”

Hunk chortled. “Dude, did you wipe yourself out helping Coran again? C’mon, man, it’s _Sunday_ — your day off! Don’t burn yourself out helping newbies every week. Kick back and relax, man.”

“I didn’t go to see Coran today,” he said, blinking his eyes at the ceiling.

“Well, then, what’d you do all day? Sounds like you went on some crazy adventure, or something.”

The word “crazy” made him shut his eyes. Then he sat up, rolled the water bottle off his hand and onto the coffee table. “I was with Nyma all day. She needed some help.”

He wasn’t surprised at the long silence that followed his reply. Hunk and Shay had cut ties with Nyma long ago; ten months ago, to be exact — he remembered because Nyma went out drag racing for days on end afterwards. She stopped after a few weeks, when she’d stomped on the brakes too fast and the car skidded on the highway, slamming them into a railing. Keith remembered laughing about it, drunk off his ass with her at a bar as she charmed some guy and swiped his car keys out of his pocket so she could get him home.

Hunk turned around in the sofa to face him, and Keith held enough respect for him to at least look his way.

“You’ve been hanging out with Nyma a lot, lately.”

Keith glanced down at the floor. “Yeah,” he just said.

There was a pregnant pause before Hunk spoke again. “You remember what she did in high school, right?”

Keith chose not to say anything.

“She and Rolo really trashed the place. She got kicked out three weeks before graduation and she didn't even care. And she’s still like that, Keith, you know that, right? That’s why even Shay stopped talking to her. She’s… She’s crazy, Keith. Really, really crazy.”

“Yeah,” said Keith. “I know.”

Hunk’s brow creased as he continued to look at him. “You never even liked Nyma before. So why’ve you been hanging out with her now?”

Keith stared at the swirls on the carpet. “I guess… cause we finally have something in common.”

Hunk just stared at him. Then he reached over, pulled him hard into his chest, and held him tight.

Keith wasn’t sure why, but he started crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The place they're at is realsies, dudes and dudettes. Check it out [here](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Target/@40.7838034,-73.8333927,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x8295053afb362464!8m2!3d40.7838034!4d-73.8333927).
> 
> (2) This is the girl to whom Nyma rented out the room to. She was lying about being paid.


	9. Hunk & Shay are fucking amazing. THAT’S IT THAT’S THE WHOLE CHAPTER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith swallowed hard, squeezed his eyes shut again. “Last time,” he said, his voice quiet in the small room. “This was the last time. I said goodbye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a fanmix for Nyma as portrayed in "Just Play Along" a looong time ago, and put it up recently. You can listen to it [here](http://8tracks.com/aestover91/get-on-board-or-get-fucked)
> 
> Also, I realized I haven't really devoted much of the fic to Keith's work?? Like, my headcanons for a Voltron hair salon AU are STRONG, and I'm so disappointed in myself that I haven't put ANY of that shit in. So the first third of this is totally just me being selfish, lololol

Keith’s mundane, December-chilled Friday was made a million times better at 11 AM, because Jessica Nguyen walked into the salon. The moment he saw her long, elegant curls bouncing in, the woman herself carrying a tote full of magazines in one hand, a trenta-sized hazelnut-caramel macchiato in the other, and a full agenda gleaming bright in her eyes, he knew he was gonna bleach and color the fuck out of that hair. _Again._

 _This_ , his brain screamed ecstatically, was going to be _an experience_.

Cutting and styling hair was fun and all, but what Keith really lived for was coloring. It was a long and arduous process, but he loved matching and beating the demands of a good challenge — even if it meant devoting most of his work time that day to a single patron. Bleaching and re-coloring took a long, long time.

“Ahh, sorry about this— Like, I tried to schedule an appointment earlier, but it’s just been sooo hectic lately that I haven’t been able to do anything,” she said with a laugh. “Oh my gosh, this is gonna take such a long time… My roots are ridic and like, waaay out of control, haha.”

“It’s fine,” he said as he applied an oro lightener and olaplex combo to thin sections of her now-short hair. Well, short- _er._ He had to cut off a good chunk of her hair that was still colored from the blue balayage ombre pixie cut she’d gone for at her last appointment. Her hair was at her shoulders now, and they hailed the return of her side bangs from three years ago; Keith thought she should’ve gone for full bangs, but whatever — she was paying him good money and he still got to do what he loved, so he didn’t push her into doing things his way this time around, even if he was usually always right. **(1)**

He gently glided his brush down her hair, applying an even coating of bleach. He set the brush down and wrapped the section in a cotton strip and gently let it rest against the other sections. Then he unpinned her hair just enough to take another thin section from the bottom and pinned the rest back up.

He took a quick glance down at her magazine. He caught a glimpse of Kim Kardashian’s side-boob and the rest of her body as she posed seductively inside a car. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the title of the magazine above the article Jessica was fixated on. **(2)**

“Are you reading GQ?”

“Oh my gosh, _yes_ ,” she whispered, eyes wide and furiously tapping on the page she was on. “I’m just catching up to this drama. Can you be _lieve_ what Taylor Swift did? My heart is like, _broken_ right now; I thought she was cleaning up her drama queen act! This is crazy!”

Keith frowned at the utterance of “crazy,” but said nothing.

“God, no,” a girl sitting beside Jessica said. Allura was adding highlights to her blonde hair as she held up her phone. “Taylor Swift is so problematic. She always cries wolf.”

Jessica cradled the phone in the palm of her hand as she went through a post on Tumblr. “No,” she whispered again, sounding like she was witnessing the death of her pet rabbit. “My heart. Is _shattered.”_

The girl next to her gave a sheepish look. “If it makes you feel any better, I still listen to her music.”

Keith paused in applying bleach to let Jessica reach over and squeeze the girl’s arm with a sorority level of understanding. His brush was gliding down a strip of her hair when he felt her suddenly sit ram-rod straight. He eyed her coffee sitting to the side and resisted the urge to dump it right down the drain because—

“I’m so sorry— I really have to pee. Again.”

Keith heaved a sigh and helped Jessica off the chair.

“Wow, it feels like my rabbit’s sitting on my head,” she giggled as she teetered towards the salon’s restroom.

He finished applying the bleach to her hair when she came back, and applied a 10-volume peroxide mix at her scalp to tackle her roots. He had her sit in a corner with another customer while the bleach worked its magic, checking on its progress every 20 minutes and re-applying the bleach whenever it was needed. In two hours time, he sent Jessica to get her hair rinsed off by Jasmine.

In between checking up on the progress of Jessica’s hair, Keith trimmed the bangs off one six-year-old girl, cut an asymmetrical bob to a woman named “Janice,” shaved someone’s head as his friends snapchatted his transformation, and reluctantly gave a bowl-cut to a an eleven-year-old boy at the insistence of his Korean mother.

“It’s okay,” he consoled the scowling child as he finished drying his hair. “I had one too.”

When Jessica came back with dampened hair, Keith applied a hair mask to her scalp and let it sit for a while before sending her back to Jasmine. He took a swig of Jessica’s coffee and checked the clock and was satisfied to see he was making great time; it was only ten after two in the afternoon.

“Oh my god,” Jessica whispered as she hauled herself away to the bathroom right after Jasmine had rinsed her hair again. She was dripping water all over the floor and giggling. “I’m so sorry,” she said to Keith, “I swear I won’t bring Starbucks again.”

This was probably her tenth trip, and it was only because she had shared her coffee with him that he was only mildly irritated at all the interruptions her bladder was making. He sat her down in a chair as soon as he finished adding layers to a girl’s hair, letting Allura take over on finishing the job.

Jessica was squirming uncomfortably in her seat as Keith prepared the orange dye.

“Please don’t tell me you need to pee again,” he deadpanned.

Jessica grimaced. “Ah, no, it’s… My butt is so sore, like, if it fell off I don’t think I’d even notice.”

They laughed. Keith was applying the hair color when Jessica got a text from her boyfriend.

“It’s Wes!” she exclaimed, face brightening with a smile. “You remember Wes, right? I think he was in one of your classes, that history one. He’s Korean, too.”

He sort of remembered another Korean classmate that _could_ have been called Wes. “Sure, I remember him,” he said.

“Ah! I told him I’m at the salon, and he asked if you’re still here. Can I say yes?”

Keith’s brow creased. “I guess?” He honestly had no idea who Wes really was or how this guy seemed to remember him. He hardly made an impression while he was at Fordham; he left after just a semester to start his cosmetology training at Aveda with Coran.

Jessica suddenly gave some kind of choking laugh. “Oh my god,” she said, laughter spilling over her words. “Did you fight a girl over a book at the Strand and lose?” **(3)**

Keith paused in applying the hair color to her bleached hair. “I didn’t lose,” he muttered. “I gave it to her.” He _did_ lose. Very badly, in fact. Shay took school seriously, and she’d nearly clocked him after learning the book they both had their eyes on was the last copy at the Strand. Hunk was the only reason why he didn’t fight back.

And that little incident was how Hunk fell head over heels in love with Shay.

Well. At least he knew how Wes remembered him.

He applied an olaplex treatment to Jessica’s hair after her hair was rinsed and conditioned by Jasmine for a third time, and sent her back again to rinse the treatment off. By that time, the clock read 4:22 and Keith was feeling how exhaustion weighed down at his back and shoulders. The coffee didn’t cut it anymore, so he caved and grabbed the red bull from his bag.

He set it aside when she came back to apply a mixture of conditioning lotion and argan oil to her hair before drying and styling her hair into loose curls. He let her take a selfie with him before she paid at the register, hugged him from the side, got into her boyfriend’s car, and left.

It was close to 5 and nearing the end of his work day when the salon finally slowed down. Friday nights were always light on the workload because everyone in the city was either out dining or drinking or staying in on a laptop. Keith collapsed into one of the styling chairs and sipped the rest of red bull as he scrolled through his Tumblr dash. He was still scrolling through his dash when Allura finished with their last customer and the salon finally emptied.

“It was good to see Jessica again,” Allura said conversationally. She was cleaning off her tools and arranging them back into their respective bins. “It’s nice to see old friends once in a while.”

Keith didn’t like the underlying message in her words, but agreed nonetheless. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You’ve been smiling more often these days. I’m glad.”

“I’m… glad, too,” was his response, because he didn’t really know what else to say.

Allura smoothed down the front of her dark blue dress, then faced him with a smile. “Would you like a trim? At no cost, of course.” **(4)**

Keith felt his eyebrows shoot up. “Uh,” he said, surprised by the sudden offer. But he allowed her to walk him to the line of sinks in the back. Jasmine had gone by now, so it was just the two of them in the salon. They were supposed to be closing up the salon, but instead, Keith found himself reclining back on one of their shampoo chairs. The water softly ran through his hair for a moment before shutting off, and then he felt Allura’s fingers gently massaging his scalp and working expensive shampoo into a rich lather.

In the silence of the salon, he heard Allura humming quietly to himself. It reminded him of his mother, who also hummed when she worked, placing halved nappa cabbages into a salt bath or chopping radishes into thin, square slices for his favorite soup. **(5)**

The water turned on again, making him blink his eyes open and remember he was still in the salon. He closed his eyes briefly so Allura could rinse the shampoo out of his hair and follow up quickly with conditioner.

“You aren’t eating well,” he heard her tsk, and it was enough to make him feel the kind of guilt that came when you’ve disappointed your parents. “Your hair is thinning. You need to remember to include enough protein in your diet.”

He didn’t say anything to her about how he was used to eating shitty food and having an irregular diet ever since he started rooming with Pidge. She’d probably blame Shiro for introducing him to unwholesome meals; which was completely the opposite — it was all Pidge. Though, Shiro tended to join their midnight snack binges from time to time when they had all still lived together.

“I’m using a nioxin scalp renewal treatment. It’ll thicken your hair and make it grow stronger. But please do keep your diet in mind. I don’t know what Pidge has been feeding you all these years, but you need to take better care of yourself.”

“Okay,” he said quietly because her fingers at his scalp were starting to make him feel drowsy.

The water turned on to rinse his hair again. It was shut off and Keith was given a fresh towel.

“Pat your hair dry,” she said as she went to one of the styling chairs. “And put on the cape when you’re ready.”

The towel was soft in his hand, and wasn’t like the fluffy towels he used at home. It felt more like microfiber cloth, and it absorbed most of the water as he gently squeezed and patted it out of his hair. When he felt like he wouldn’t drip all over the floor, he tossed the towel into the used bin so it could get cleaned over the weekend. He took one of the black capes from the hangars and snapped it in place, then came to sit at the chair Allura stood by.

Allura sectioned off his hair into three manageable parts, pinning them atop with silver pins and creating a length guideline by carefully snipping off a section in the back. Neither one of them said a word for most of the trim. It was only when she was working on the layering of his hair that she spoke again.

“I want to apologize for interfering with your relationship with Lance.”

He almost jerked his head up, but he was able cut his movements short by clenching the sides of his chair instead.

“It was wrong for me to get involved. I had thought…” She suddenly stopped and shook her head. “No, it doesn’t matter what I thought. It wasn’t my place to push the two of you into a situation of that nature. I apologize.”

She resumed cutting his hair.

Keith stared at the dark material of her dress. He wondered how long she felt this way; he remembered her aggrieved face on that night, one that was directed towards— And then he wondered, suddenly: had that look truly been directed at Lance? Could she not have been upset at Lance? Could she have been upset, instead… at herself?

And how had he felt about her, after that night? He hadn’t, really; it was the same even now. He didn’t think she was someone involved enough to get mad at, or to blame. She had just… done what she thought was right, gently nudging them in the right places but never forcing anything upon them.

It wasn’t her fault his relationship with Lance was broken. That was on him; Keith had refused to take his calls, take his texts, take any messages through friends. He just didn’t want to talk to him. He didn’t want to deal with him and his stupidity anymore. He’d put up with him for years and he… was just tired of it. That was all. He never once thought to blame Allura.

And he never once thought Allura would be blaming herself.

He wondered, then, how Shiro must feel, and how Hunk and Pidge thought of themselves. Would they, too, be blaming themselves for the group’s broken dynamic? Or would they be blaming them, Keith and Lance?

And Lance… Who did Lance blame?

The soft roar of the dryer cast away his thoughts. He watched Allura run her hands through his hair and follow closely with the hair dryer. He watched her smooth his hair down when it was all done, very much like how his own mother would do whenever she saw him.

He let her arms press down on his shoulders, and her chin rest on the top of his head.

She was smiling at him through the mirror, eyes full of good cheer from a job well done and soft fondness for him, a quiet, awkward young man whom she had picked out of a crowd of trainees at Coran’s cosmetology class for his _“intuitive thinking and stylistic daring.”_ She’d raised him up to be the stylist he was today, and played as much a part in who he was as Coran did, whose faith in his abilities was the reason why he sought out his dream; and the only reason he finally drew up the courage to fight for that dream was… no longer here.

“It’s not your fault,” he said to her, meeting her gaze with his own. “I never blamed you for what happened. I’m… I’m sorry for worrying you.”

The smile on her face exuded gratitude and peace. “Thank you, Keith,” she said softly, drawing back just enough to turn the styling chair around to embrace him properly. “I’m sorry that you’re still hurting. Just know that you also have me here to support you.”

Keith closed his eyes, listening to her words and trying not to pretend she was someone else.

 

* * *

 

8th Avenue was as busy now at half past five in the afternoon as it was any other time of the day. Exhaust fumes from cars that whizzed up the one-way avenue mixed with the tangy aroma of warm marinara sauce and melting mozzarella from the pizzeria right ahead, and THINK COFFEE spewed the scent of its rich colombian brew into the streets each time someone entered or left its shop. A group of girls passed him by, all laughing about something they saw on Parks and Rec the other night, and two guys arguing over whether they were going the right way stopped him to ask _“hey, are we in Chelsea yet? do you by any chance know where this bar is?”_ **(6)**

He pointed them in the direction they came from, telling them to _“keep walking up, your bar’s gonna be on your right in about ten minutes,”_ and receiving a quick thanks and a _“see ya, man!”_ from them. He was standing right in front of THINK COFFEE when he felt his phone vibrate and chime with an alert.

He slipped his phone out from his coat pocket and glanced at it.

Queen Nykki  
  
;*  
  


He put his phone back in his pocket and crossed the street.

He was just walking past the CVS building when his phone went off again. He took it out.

Queen Nykki  
  
bitch i see you walking  
  
don’t act like you didn’t get my text  
  


With a sigh, he peeled off one of his gloves so he could text back.

what do you want  
  
wow kiki  
  
is this how you treat your friends?  
  
all this negative wind chill is what makes me so cool tho  
  
<3  
  
no thanks  
rude  
  
you free rn?  
  
lol jk i know you are  
  


He didn’t answer that, but he found quickly that he didn’t have to. He heard a car horn go off behind him, and when he turned around he saw a white Lexus cruising down to double-park at the corner of the CVS he was standing in front of. **(7)**

The window to the driver’s side rolled down, and he heard 80s synth rock and Laura Branigan’s lamenting vocals spill out into the street: _“Whatever I do, wherever I go, I’m never coming baaaack to youuu!”_ **(8)**

Nyma folded her purple aviators and leaned out with a wicked grin. “Get in loser, we’re going shopping! I got my eye on a pretty rock that I’d _kill_ for.”

Keith narrowed her eyes at her. “Who’s car is that?”

Nyma raised an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

 _YES,_ he screamed mentally. The shout manifested only as a slight clench of his hands at his sides.

As if sensing his thoughts, Nyma rolled her eyes. “Just get in the car, you big baby.”

Keith stared at the car for a minute, his left foot rooted to the pavement while the other had already gone down to step into the street. He thought about Hunk and their conversation on his sofa _(“She’s crazy, Keith. Really, really crazy.”),_ thought about Allura and how she’d blamed herself _(“I’m sorry that you’re still hurting.”)._ He thought about telling Nyma to just fuck off so he could go home, and then about how ‘home’ was with Hunk and Shay, who were always together, and how his ‘home’ had been someone else’s home. He thought about being stuck in someone else’s room, trapped with echoing memories, both good and bad.

He thought about Lance.

Nyma slapped the side of the car. “Hurry up, mullet man! Time is money!” **(9)**

Keith uprooted his right foot and let his left guide him into the backseat of Nyma’s car.

 

* * *

 

“I thought you were going shopping.”

“I am, babe, quit bitching.”

“You’re driving to Queens.”

“ _Your mom_ lives in Queens _._ Literally.”

Keith exhaled long and slow, hitting the back of his head against the back seat’s headrest. “Nyma—”

“Chill out, Kiki. We’ll be harmless today. I know a girl working in a Swarovski at the Queens Center Mall. That’s where we’re going. Harmless, okay? I promise.” **(11)**

He sat in the back seat, his whole body tensing at the word “harmless.” He stared out the window and watched the way they sped past the other cars at a speed he was sure they shouldn’t be driving at. But he didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to fight her anymore; it was exhausting. _She_ was exhausting.

Suddenly, a siren blared and lights flashed behind them.

Ice plunged into his bloodstream.

“Shit,” said Nyma, hitting her palm on the wheel and slowing down. “We’re being pulled over. Quick,” she reached down to the floor of the car where she sat and pulled something up. “Hide this,” she said, holding something out to him.

It was a gun.

Keith froze.

_“Trust no one.” “This is a bad, bad, idea.” “She’s crazy, Keith. Really, really crazy.”_

“What are you doing?” Nyma hissed, sending him a murderous look through the rear-view mirror. “Don’t fuck this up, Keith, I swear to _god.”_

Keith sucked in a breath.

He reached out with a gloved hand and put it in his coat.

They pulled over on the side of the highway. The cops puled over behind them and cut the siren. They left their lights flashing.

One of the officers left the car. Keith watched the officer approach their car from the side mirror on the driver’s side. His heart played a calm, steady beat against the gun pressed against his chest.

Nyma’s window was open all the way. She had her hands on the wheel and lowered the volume of her music as Cyndi Lauper chanted _“Girls! They wanna!_ — _They wanna have fun!_ — _Girls! They wanna have_ — _”_

“License and registration,” the officer said.

Nyma gave the officer a warm smile. “Sure, no problem.” She passed them over through the window. She peered into her side mirror. “Hey… is that a dog in your car?”

“Yes, ma’am. That would be K9 Maximus. But we just call him Max, for short.”

“He’s so cute!” Nyma gushed, adjusting the side mirror so she could see the dog better, and the officer smiled. “Oh my god, is he wearing a vest?”

Keith sat silently in the back seat, breathing slowly as he listened to the inane exchange take place. He listened to the officer chat with her about K9 training, about the loyalty of the dogs on the force, about the sacrifices some of their dogs have made. He listened to Nyma’s sympathetic _“ohhh”_ s and _“oh no”_ s as the officer shared a story about how K9 Max took a bullet for his partner, Stanley, even when the dog had no vest on because it was an off day and he was playing catch with Stanley in the park; the officer talked about about how nobody thought K9 Max would make it out alive.

Then the officer talked about her car.

The 2016 white, Lexus ES was registered in her name. It’s her first time speeding; she’s had a good, clean slate since this one incident in high school, the officer said. Keith thought, wow, _that’s a fucking lie, that’s all a goddamn fucking lie._ He watched her pout, bat her eyelashes, and ask the officer if he could please not mail anything to her house, _“my daddy would kill me; I just got this car, please?”_ Keith listened to the officer relent, _“we can email this to you, if that’s alright,”_ and wondered how differently this could have played out, if it were Hunk at the driver’s seat, or Lance, or even Allura.

“And who do we have here?” The officer was looking deep into the car, at him.

Keith looked at the officer, who was smiling kindly down at him. “Her boyfriend,” he said, without a stutter.

“Boyfriend?” The officer laughed. “Well, young man, why aren’t you sitting next to this lovely lady?”

Keith didn’t even blink. “Because her dog peed on the leather up front this morning, and I’m _not_ sitting there.”

The officer laughed again. The sound made guilt and disgust churn in his stomach; he felt the gun pressing into his chest, lying right underneath his coat, right under his scarf, and his brain was livid: _“you’re disgusting, look at what you’re doing; you’re a horrible, horrible person; the absolute worst; there’s not a single soul out there who’ll trust you now, absolutely no one.”_

 _There’s a gun here!_ He wanted to shout, _It’s not mine! It’s her’s! She has a gun! It’s not mine; I have nothing to do with this; I have no idea what the fuck’s going on!_

But he didn’t and he just grinned back when the officer cracked a joke; about what, he didn’t know; he wasn’t listening, he only knew to smile and just play along because Nyma was giggling and the officer was laughing and he _had_ to play along; he had to, or else.

“Drive safe this time. No more speeding, no matter how late you are to your dinner.”

Nyma actually got out of the car. “Oooh, wait! Can I take a selfie with K9 Max?”

When the officer asked if he wanted to join, he politely declined.

“Oh, don’t mind him,” said Nyma. “He’s not really a dog person. I love him anyway, though.” She gave him a wink.

While Nyma was taking selfies with the dog and the two officers (Stanley and Richard), Keith’s phone vibrated in his pocket. His heart almost burst and he had to hold his breath for ten seconds to keep himself from screaming.

He took out his phone.

Hunkydory  
  
dude where are you?  
  


_Shit._ Keith squeezed his eyes shut. _Shit._

His fingers trembled as he texted back.

sry I got sidetracked  
  
when are you getting back?  
  
not sure  
  


Nyma returned and waved the officers goodbye. K9 Max stuck his head out of the car and lolled his tongue before Officer Richard gave the dog a quick tug on Max’s vest and the dog was back in the car, sitting at attention.

The police car drove away. Nyma laughed as she drove her car back on the highway. She cranked up the volume on her music just in time for PTAF to declare _“I'm a boss ass bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch_ — _”_

Nyma whooped and raised her window. “ _Fuck,_ that was close. I knew I should’ve fixed the glove compartment. Fuck. Oh, and, killer job, by the way. Didn't know you had it in you. Way to play it cool, Kiki.”

Something ugly dropped painfully into his gut. He couldn’t say thanks, he couldn’t laugh along. He couldn’t even tell her to _“shut the fuck up, this isn’t a fucking game.”_

The car filled with a bumping beat Nicki Minaj rapped away to; _“My wrists look like I am a jewel thief. But that's just 'cause I am a boss bitch. Now macaroni cheese and grill my swordfish_ — _”_

He thought of his mother, about how she told all her friends that he cuts celebrity hair for a living, how he even _“cut Nicki Minnajuh’s hair, did you know?”_ He thought about how she sat with him in her room and talked to him about Jae-Young, and Jeffrey, and Yong-Su, and Chan-Bin— and how she finally looked proud — _really_ proud — of her gay, hair-stylist son.

He burned with shame.

“Nyma, I’m—” Keith stopped and took a drew in a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger than he thought it would be. “I can't do this anymore. I’m not you. I never was.”

_“Chill out, Kiki.” “Quit bitching.” “Cool your jets, Kiki.”_

He waited for her to say something, scoff, roll her eyes, tease him; he waited for the fight she’d bring.

But she didn’t say anything.

She just drove on as if he never said a word. Her music played on, loudly, blasting away Rihanna, Britney Spears, M. I. A., and even Booty Bronx in the car.

Keith numbly stared at the back of her head as she got off the exit at Queensboro, as she weaved through pot-holed streets, as she weaved through narrow roads that curved through warehouses and big business headquarters and gas stations, as she drove right on through… and got back on the highway towards Manhattan.

Keith didn’t say anything, either. Just looked out the window on his side as she went through the toll and sped them down Queensboro bridge; the bridge spat them out in midtown, and they began whizzing through the city streets, shooting past glittering storefronts, passing by the 5th Avenue boutiques, and then the old art store on the west side that’s been displaying “FINAL SALE — ALL ITEMS MUST GO” for three years in a row.

The car slowed to a stop in front of a street— _his_ street.

Without a word, without even turning around, Nyma reached her hand back and held out her palm.

And did nothing else.

He stared at her hand for a long, long time, in silent confusion, until he realized what it meant.

He carefully withdrew the gun from inside his coat and deposited it in her hand.

Then he got out of the car. He watched her drive off, never once looking back.

There was a heaviness in his chest that he recognized as sadness; but it wasn’t sadness for him — it was sadness for her.

He walked into the building, let the elevator carry him up to the seventh floor instead of taking the stairs this time, and got into the third apartment down the hallway from the right. He could hear the sounds of giggling and rapid-fire shooting before he even opened the door. He saw Hunk and Shay sitting side by side on the couch, playing Call of Duty together.

He didn’t hang his coat in the hall closet; he wore it right into the apartment, thinking he could slip in without them noticing. But he forgot Shay was a middle school teacher and had the ears of a hawk.

“Hey, Keith! Just in time! We’re almost done. We were thinking about going out to eat and— …Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, quickly retreating to his room. He let himself in and slipped his shoes off, leaving them next to the door before he could flop right onto the bed. He could footsteps thud carefully down the hall and he turned over on his back and sat up just as Hunk appeared in front of his door.

Hunk stood quietly, one hand leaning on the doorframe. He looked worried. “Keith? You alright?”

Keith pressed his hands to his eyes. “Yeah, I— Just had a long day.”

There was a slight pause between them before Hunk asked: “Were you with Nyma again?”

Keith dropped his hands in his lap and looked up.

Hunk looked angry; as angry as Keith had ever seen him, which on Hunk’s face just came off as severe disappointment. It still made him feel like shit, because what kind of person would wanna disappoint Hunk? A horrible, horrible person, that’s who; someone who’d never have anybody trust him now, absolutely no one.

Keith swallowed hard, squeezed his eyes shut again. “Last time,” he said, his voice quiet in the small room. “This was the last time. I said goodbye.”

Hunk didn’t say anything. Keith could feel him staring at him from the doorway for a few more minutes before Hunk finally just left and shut the door.

Before he went to sleep that night, Keith blocked Nyma’s number from his phone.

He never heard from her again.

 

* * *

 

As soon as he got off work the next day, Keith got a text.

Hunkydory  
  
sup brah  
  
got a minute?  
  


He checked the time and realized, whoa, it was after six. He hadn’t even realized; no wonder Allura was in such a rush to send him off. He hadn’t thought Nadia’s hair would take him so long, but he didn’t mind. He just couldn’t send her out at 5 after she’d spent all day in another salon that butchered her hair.

 _“I’m sorry; I should have known not to go anywhere but here. It’s just, my friend started working there, and I_ — _”_

 _“It’s fine,”_ Keith had told her. _“I got you.”_

 _“We’ll give you a discount,”_ Allura had even said, hugging the crying girl. _“Half price, since you’re one of our regulars.”_

_“Oh, thank you! Thank you so, so much!”_

Judging by his wording, Hunk didn’t seem to be at home. After yesterday, he probably wouldn’t have just asked _“got a minute?”_ if he were home. Hunk might’ve been more inclined to ask _“where are you?”_

Keith quickly texted back.

yeah. just got off work.  
  
you want me to pick up dinner?  
  
nah, it’s good  
  
thanks, though  
  
how soon can you get home?  
  
omw now  
  
what’s up?  
  
shay says she cant remember if she brought her laptop home  
  
can you see if you can find it in our room? she needs it rn.  
  
yeah  
  
you coming to get it, or. . .?  
  


He didn’t get a reply, but he guessed it was because they were out together for the first time in weeks. Shay rarely had free time because of her job, and Hunk was pretty busy with his own work, too. He’d scored a professorship at NYU just last year after his research internship with Dr. Holt, and had impressed the Engineering department so much that they unanimously decided to bring him on board when one of their professors retired and the school needed an Applied Physics instructor, stat.

He took the short subway trip from downtown Chelsea and popped out at Columbus Circle, weathering the brisk air by tugging up the collar of his overcoat and wrapping his scarf tight around his neck. He passed by Guantanamera, feeling nostalgic warmth run through him as he caught the aroma of familiar spices and sauces, and walked the ten blocks westward and northward to get to Hunk’s apartment.

He said hello to Mr. Cha, who once again invited him to a Christian bible study group later that evening. He politely declined and they parted ways. He took the elevator up to the fifth floor and walked the rest of the way using the stairs, stopping by to stroke the small cat that Mrs. Nancy on the sixth floor was secretly hiding away, and finally got home.

The first thing he realized when he got in was that they needed to take out the trash. Usually, Hunk got it done before he got back, but seeing as how he was hanging out with Shay (and would probably be occupied later that night), Keith thought it better to take it out himself. But later, he told himself as he hung up his coat and scarf in the closet by the door, because he was exhausted and he needed to nap if he was going to void the apartment for the two lovebirds later.

He checked his phone again, but there was still no message telling him where to bring the laptop. He sighed and texted them _(do you still need it?)_ and walked to Hunk’s room in search of Shay’s laptop.

Their room was clean, except for the papers strewn all over the desk that probably belonged to Shay’s students, and Keith looked and looked and looked for her laptop. He was about ready to give up when he finally found it on the bed, half-hidden under the covers and still plugged into the wall.

He unplugged it, grabbed the laptop case from the floor, and was about to shove the laptop in when he saw that there was a pink post-it stuck on the surface. He peeled it off and was putting it inside the laptop when he caught his name on it, written in bold, black sharpie, in Shay’s neat cursive.

He set the laptop and its case down on the bed, and looked at the note.

He narrowed his eyes.

It was addressed to him.

 

> _Hi, Keith!_
> 
> _From where you are standing, please turn around and take 5 steps forward, 13 steps to your left, and follow the next set of instructions you see._
> 
>  
> 
> _Love,  
>  _ _Shay_
> 
> _PS: I borrowed a few Star Trek comics. I swear you’ll get them back soon. (like, in a month :) <3) _

 

Keith narrowed his eyes at the last part, only mildly irritated. But curiosity soon bubbled over it, along with a feeling of foreboding.

The last time this happened, they had tried to get him to listen to MCR. The two had taken it as a personal offence when he told them he didn’t particularly care for MCR or Green Day or The Killers or whatever else they’d listed, and had cried to him how it didn’t make sense because these bands were apparently just _soooo_ him.

It was out of the respect and love he had for them that he gave their music a shot, listening to a rather lengthy playlist they’d prepared for him on his laptop when they suddenly barged in to excitedly rock out in his room, but he didn’t really get what all their excitement was about. He still preferred K-Pop to pretty much anything else, even to this day — though, it wasn’t something he’d readily admit to.

He sighed and texted them again.

this better not be like last time  
  


He wasn’t surprised when he didn’t get a reply. That’s exactly what happened last time.

He stuck the note in his back pocket and turned around. He took five steps forward and found himself just outside Hunk’s room. He turned to his left. Then he began taking thirteen steps forward.

_One, two, three, four…_

He started thinking about what to eat for dinner. If he was gonna vacate the room, he wanted to be out long before they came stumbling in, preferably with a message written out on the counter for them. There were plenty of places for him to choose from around here; he could go cheap and go to The Olympic Flame diner, or be a little upscale and head to Route 66 or The Greek Kitchen. If he didn’t mind the walk, there was even Rosa Mexicana and Sapphire and Sushi Damo. And, of course, there was always Guantanamera.

_Five, six… eight…?_

He stopped. Was that step seven or step eight? He’d counted to six before, so… was that step seven?

 _Oh my god,_ his brain screamed at him, _you lost count?!_

Keith stomped back to stand in front of Hunk’s room. Then he stopped with a start because _fuck this counting._ The only place where he could possibly be if he took that many steps down this particular corridor was his own room.

This was MCR 2.0, wasn’t it?

Keith turned on his heel and marched to his room. The door was closed. There was a yellow post-it right on it, with Hunk’s handwriting on it.

He read the note.

 

> **1) Open the door**
> 
> **2) Go inside**
> 
> **3) Listen carefully**

 

Fuck. This was MCR 2.0.

Keith stared at the note, heart full of desperate pleas _(I’ll go to Mr. Cha’s bible study group next week if this isn’t MCR 2.0, I swear!)_ . He really hoped this wasn’t another attempt at getting him to listen to alternative rock because he thought he’d made it clear the last time that one: he wasn’t “emo” or whatever, and two: _he didn’t care._

He liked the music video for _Famous Last Words_ , though. Not that he went searching for it on his own or anything.

Keith sighed through his nose. He reached out with his hand, twisted the doorknob, opened the door, and stepped inside.

And saw Lance, sitting on his bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I know, like, 0 things about styling and coloring hair. Everything is grabbed from [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oDbrFcDzLs) by princessmei on YouTube and [this link](http://www.xovain.com/hair/salon-colorists-bleaching-hair-badly) my friend sent me.
> 
> (2) The article in question can be found online [here](http://www.gq.com/story/kim-kardashian-west-gq-cover-story).
> 
> (3) [The Strand](http://www.strandbooks.com/) is a bookstore that every reader in NYC holds dear to their heart.
> 
> (4) Allura's dress is [here](http://img.davidsbridal.com/is/image/DavidsBridalInc/VW360261_MIDNIGHT_VW_PROD4_FRONT?%24plpimagedesktop%24).
> 
> (5) Salting nappa cabbage is one of the earlier steps to making kimchi. Read more about that [here](http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/tongbaechu-kimchi). The soup I'm referring to is [spicy radish and beef soup](http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/radish-soup), called "maeun mooguk" (매운 무국).
> 
> (6) I'm describing a real neighborhood, which you can see through Google maps [here](http://www.google.com/maps/@40.7391482,-74.0032855,3a,75y,100.01h,79.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stcvAmK1nsvB6jDnU0lS73w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1).
> 
> (7) The car can be found [here](https://lexusenthusiast.com/images/weblog/15-08-25-lexus-es-2016-eminent-white.jpg).
> 
> (8) The Laura Branigan song is called "Whatever I do," which you can listen to [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8EBpy0UAlc).
> 
> (9) The two lines — _"Get in loser, we're going shopping!" _ & _"Hurry up, mullet man! Time is money!"_ — is a callback to chapter 5, where Nyma was first introduced as "just a fun character." It's to force the reader to compare her then to how she is now.__
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _(10) Queens Center Mall is[here](http://www.shopqueenscenter.com/)._  
> 


	10. WHY IS EVERYONE YELLING?? (aka Keith and Lance are fucking idiots and also there is bacon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Say goodbye to that pot of black nector.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank each and every one of you who supported me and my little baby here by leaving me kudos and comments, dropping by to say hello to me on Tumblr, and sharing this fic with friends. This summer has been one of the most memorable times of my young adult life; I stopped writing two years ago, after I started teaching because of the sheer amount of time and energy it sapped from me. This summer was the first summer I ever had free time to myself, and I decided to just dive right into Voltron because, you know, why not? :V 
> 
> I never imagined "Just Play along" to turn out this way, either. This was originally supposed to be a 3-chaptered gag fic with absolutely no literary elements. It was supposed to a casual writing project between the angst-heavy "E O Mai" and the high-energy demands of "Blindsided." I'm glad I jumped into it and immersed myself completely.
> 
> Before I end, I just wanted to say three more things: 
> 
> (1) **This is not the last chapter.** There is one more chapter left — an epilogue of sorts — that I haven't had the time to write. I don't know when it'll be written, if at all. But it will be up and running hopefully soon.
> 
> (2) I'm planning on writing a series of side ficlets for this universe, ones that explore the stories and perspectives frequently mentioned here but could not be expanded here. Keith and Lance's childhood, their tumultuous adolescent years, Nyma's relationship with the squad, etc. I have no idea when or if this will ever be written, but it's definitely in the works.
> 
> (3) I LOVE YOU!!! :) Just wanted to make sure you all knew that. <3

It’s strange how the mind can remember so many little details. Even things that, to others, might be trivial, useless things. Like the way his mother sneezed. The sound of his father snoring away at night. The smile of his first grade teacher. The piercing scream of kids racing out of a collapsing castle. The cold, clammy palm of a terrified boy, for whom he’d crawled through a cave of blue vinyl and nylon fabric. The warmth on his face when twin lips met his cheek. The beating of his heart, sounding like drums in his young ears, when the boy smiled radiantly and told him, _“You’re my special person, now!”_

He wondered, briefly, what Lance could remember. What did Lance see that day? What did he hear; what did he feel? What did he mean, when he said, _“You’re my special person, now!”_ And how much of that still applies now, anyway?

Keith looked at Lance. He was sitting on his bed, shoulders tight, lips pressed together, slowly unfolding himself from a hunched position, like he’d been wanting to crawl into himself and disappear before the door burst open and Keith walked in. His socks were blue. His sneakers were off, set to the side next to the door — just how Keith had always told him to do. Lance remembered that, and it made him feel… something, to know that Lance remembered to take his shoes off when coming into his room. His jacket was off, too, draped neatly over the back of his chair, and not on his bed or the floor or anywhere else. It was folded in half, the long way, and hanging over the back of his chair, just like how… how Keith had always told him to do, back when Lance stayed over when they were both kids, back when Lance had classes til late at night and crashed with him because Keith lived closer to the train station, back when Lance was still a part of his life.

He didn’t know what to feel, if he was even feeling anything at all, seeing how Lance remembered the shoes, remembered the jacket, remembered the— What else did he remember? Everything, probably. He was always that type of guy. He always still cared.

Even knowing that, that Lance still cared, Keith still didn't… feel anything. He felt dry; and empty — like the plastic bottle he’d dropped in Nyma’s car; like the lot before they destroyed Rolo’s car; like the inside of her car, left abandoned for selfies with cops and a dog while he stayed, gun in his coat, breathing slowly, forcing himself to be calm. He was empty. He didn’t— He couldn’t feel anything. And that, _that_ made him feel — horrible; terrible; a painful twisting in his gut, because what a shitty guy he must be for not feeling a damn thing, not even when the person once most precious to him was right here in front of him.  

His head suddenly swarmed with thoughts. _Lance was here,_ a voice spoke urgently, _Lance was here_ _— this was his chance!_ His chance for what? _Maybe, if they spoke…_ If they spoke, would that really change anything? _Open your mouth, say something, anything! Then maybe…_ Maybe he could feel. Something. Anything. Maybe.

That quiet voice whispering in his ear, all a string of incessant pleas, picked up something that had died once inside of him. It was a “warm” something, a “feel-good” something, that he felt stirring to life and he tried to squash it because he didn’t want to feel that way anymore; he wanted it dead, he wanted it gone, he wanted it—

“Hey,” Lance spoke suddenly, with half of a smile.

—He wanted it back. Oh, how desperately he wanted it back.

“Nice… Nice room you got,” he said with a weak laugh that made Keith drop his gaze to the floor because Lance still had such a nice smile. “I see you filled in the holes in the wall. I was… I was supposed to do that, but I, uh. I didn’t. Didn’t have time for that. I was lingering here too long and I just. I didn’t get to it. So I’m— I’m glad you did.”

The silence that blanketed them was thick and heavy. He could feel it smothering them, sapping their thoughts, his thoughts, away. He had to get it off. He had to get rid of it, burn it, because now, he wanted it back. The way Lance made him feel — he wanted that back.

Keith cleared his throat. “I didn't do it. That was Hunk.” At least, he was pretty sure it was Hunk. The walls were filled in when Keith got here, after all.

“Oh. Right.” Keith glanced up, caught Lance’s eye. Lance wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked quiet and contemplative. Hesitant. “That… That makes sense. You didn’t— You didn’t move in right after I…” Lance looked away and his voice trailed off.

“Left?” Keith offered.

“Yeah,” said Lance as he swallowed, blinking his eyes a few times as he turned to stare at a spot on the wall beside Keith.

Keith followed his gaze. He saw the small dent in the wall, the two cracked lines near its ends making spidery patterns. It was right across from the desk and beside the door. It was a few years old, but still looked fresh. The memories, too, were still fresh. He could hear their angry voices from that day ringing in his ears.

Some kind of pitiful, barking laugh came from Lance, making Keith turn to look at him. “Ha, that dent’s still there. You remember? We were arguing about something, and you threw a stapler. It hit the wall, and I threw it back and got your shoulder. I didn’t mean to, but it happened, and you were—” Lance rubbed his face with his hands, some kind of crooked smile playing on his lips. “Oh, man, you got so mad, you didn’t talk to me for _weeks…_ I don’t—” Lance dropped his hands to his lap, his face falling blank. “I don’t even remember what we fought about.”

The angry voices were a swarm in his head. He remembered them, how they’d sounded, how loudly their voices resonated in the room. But that was all the memory supplied. No words surfaced to his mind, not a single one. So he had no idea what the voices were yelling about, if they’d even been yelling about something. Maybe they’d just been yelling at each other.

Keith leaned against the door-frame, letting his head fall forward and staring at his own feet. His shoes were still on. He should take them off. “I don't remember either,” he said, staring at his shoes.

And there it was again — that blanket, that terrible, smothering blanket of thick silence that flung itself between them. They were drifting again, pulling away, treading through dark and stormy waters that could turn to turbulent waves with the wrong word, the wrong tone, the wrong everything. He was sick of it— sick of the blanket, sick of the silence, sick of the— He was sick of himself, of his complacency, of his own shit, of his— of his fucking cowardice.

Keith picked his head up, scowling. “What do you want?”

“I…” Lance looked down at his hands in his lap. “I don’t know.”

Irritation. He felt it flare, just slightly. It manifested in the way his fist clenched tight on the doorknob. He didn’t even realize he was still holding the doorknob; all this time, standing in the doorway of his own room, talking to Lance, and he still had one hand on the door, ready to bolt. _Sick,_ he heard his head cursing him, _you’re fucking sick of yourself, aren’t you? Then do something._

Keith took in a deep breath and sighed heavily, letting his shoulders droop downwards with the motion. He stared once at the floor, at the hand on the doorknob, and back to the floor again. He took a step forward, out of the way of the swinging door as it shut, and leaned against it. He toed his shoes off, pushing them to the side with his socked feet. Then he dropped his head back against the door, closed his eyes, and sighed a second time before asking, “Who’s idea was this?”

“Mine. It was mine.”

Keith sent him a narrow-eyed look, because if this was Lance’s idea, then Lance had words, Lance had a plan, Lance had an idea of what was supposed to happen. But nothing was happening. And Lance didn't plan for nothing to happen, which meant Lance was afraid of something.

For some reason, that pissed him off. Keith scowled. “So hurry up, then. What the hell do you want?”

“I just—” Lance clenched his jaw, balled his hands into fists in his lap, let them go, “I wanted to talk to you. I tried calling you, but you— you blocked my number. Then you changed your number, twice, after I tried calling you from the Garrison, and then I just… I just stopped. I thought you needed space. I thought if I left you alone, you’d— you’d try and talk to me, or you’d let me talk to you. I thought it’d be like that stupid fight we had with the stapler—”

Irritation flared into anger and disgust. It reared its ugly head and roared out of Keith’s mouth. “You mean the one where you _don’t remember_ what we fought over?”

“No, I— I mean, _yes,_ I don’t remember, but—”

Keith cut him off. “So you don’t remember what you did that night? Is _that_ it?”

Lance’s eyes widened. “What? No! Keith, I—”

“Are you really that fucking dense?!” Keith’s own voice rang in his ears, violent and loud. It turned spiteful, hissing like a snake, “Would you like me refresh your memory?”

“Can you just shut up for one second? I’m trying to say I’m sorry!”

Keith snorted. “Yeah? Well, you’re doing a shitty job.”

Lance got up, eyes flashing and fists at his sides. Keith leaned away from the door, watching him carefully. Then Lance suddenly stopped. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When Lance spoke again, Keith heard a tremor in his voice, like he was fighting hard to hold something back. “It takes two to resolve a fight,” he said, now staring right at Keith. “And— you’re not even trying! You won’t even _listen_ to me! You’re just — ” Lance pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, “so _frustrating!”_

That fucking blew him up. He was beyond pissed now; he was incensed, he was insulted. _“I’m_ frustrating?! _You’re_ the one who thinks everything is just a game! You never—”

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ.” Lance ran both hands through his hair. “This isn't supposed to go this way. We weren’t supposed to— _You_ weren’t supposed to— You’re not even following instructions! You were supposed to listen carefully, not make this worse! This was supposed to be a heart to heart. We were supposed to fix this!”

“Maybe we don't need _fixing,”_ Keith snapped, growing sick and tired of this shitstorm because he fucking knew this wouldn’t work, this was never supposed to work. “Maybe we’re already _fixed_. Maybe this is how we’re supposed to be.”

Lance’s brows shot up and his eyes widened, possessed by a stunned look. “You don’t mean that.”

He was moving before he knew what he was doing. “Yeah? Fine. Why don’t I show you?.” Keith ripped the door open, the wild swing blowing his bangs over his eyes as he fixed a terribly sober stare on Lance. “Get out.”

Lance didn’t move. He stayed where he was, as if he were rooted to the ground. A wild mix of emotions mixed on his face as he stared at the open door.

“I _said_ , ‘get out.’”

A single look finally settled on Lance’s face: silent disbelief, with wide eyes and lips parted in shock. His eyes, swimming with something resembling betrayal, flicked back and forth between Keith and the open door. Then, his eyes sharpened and his mouth clamped shut. His hands turned to fists at his sides as he shot Keith a stormy look. “No.”

Keith kicked the door open all the way, letting it slam against the wall. “Get the fuck out!”

“Don’t tell me to get the fuck out,” Lance snapped. “I’ll get the fuck out when this fucking mess between us is fixed and we’re back to being okay.”

Keith kicked at the door again, feeling his anger rise like a shot of fire. His eyes squeezed shut and he grit his teeth. “There’s nothing _to_ fix! You wanna fix something?! Get the fuck out! Then we’ll get back to being ‘okay.’ I was okay even before you showed up—”

“Don’t fucking give me that _shit,”_ Lance snarled, “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to right now? You think _I’m_ gonna buy your bullshit? Is this the kind of shit you make Hunk put up with every day? Your fucking sorry ass moping around and pretending like everything’s okay? Does _this_ sound like everything’s okay to you?! This is _not_ the conversation _we_ should be having if everything was okay! And you’re — You’re not even _looking_ at me! You’re seriously gonna tell me everything’s fucking okay when you can’t even look at me?”

Keith swallowed hard. “Just— Just get out, Lance. There's nothing to talk about anymore. It's okay. We're okay. I’ll talk to you later, or something, just— just not right now.”

He could feel Lance staring at him, eyes drilling holes into the side of his face. “You think we’re okay,” he echoed, voice hollow and dead. It turned spiteful real fast as he closed the space between them with two angry strides and started shouting again. “You really think we’re okay? You really think— You really think _you’re_ okay?! If you’re so fucking okay, then what the _fuck_ were you hanging out with Nyma for?!” Lance shoved him hard, the heel of his hand slamming into his shoulder and knocking him against the door. “She’s fucking crazy!”

Keith snapped his head up. “She’s not crazy, she’s just—!”

“She’s not crazy? Are you fucking kidding me?! Do you even _know_ what she’s like?! You do, don’t you?! Hunk said you’ve been hanging out with her, so obviously you know what she _does!_ You think you’re okay when your only way to deal with your fucking shitty self is to fuck around with a psycho bitch?!”

“Don’t call her that!”

“What, a psycho bitch? You’ve been with her! You should know she’s all of that and _then_ some!” **(1)**

Keith punched him. His fist connected with the side of Lance’s face and he reeled the same fist back for another hit. But the Garrison had gotten hold of Lance for a year now, and Lance wasn’t that awkward kid flailing madly for a hit. Lance actually knew was he was doing. And, as always, Keith found out the hard way.

Lance’s hand shot out to catch the incoming fist. His other hand crossed under and grabbed the side of his face. The hand clenching over his fist yanked him forward, and Keith was shoved toward his desk on the other side of the room.

The move hadn’t been enough to throw him into the desk, but it very well could have. Keith was able to catch his balance and stopped himself from crashing into the desk by slamming his hands on the surface of the table. It pissed him off, how easily Lance had thrown him aside, and he was furious enough to let his anger take control of him, to make him grab the closest thing off his desk — a stapler — and whirl around, to make him reel his arm back a second time.

Lance eyed the item in his hand and hesitated for a split second. Then his eyes sharpened. “Do it. I fucking dare you.”

And he did do it. Keith chucked it as hard as he could, as hard as he would allow himself to. There was still a part of him that was in control of himself, no matter how small that part was, and that was the part of him that told him to throw it off-center, just by a little, so that it would fly right by Lance’s fucking ear, just so Lance would know he was serious, just so Lance would freak out and maybe, _finally_ , get the fuck out.

But Lance didn’t get the fuck out. He didn’t even flinch. He just stared at him with an intense look, even as the stapler flew right by his ear and hit the wall with a sickening crack. It fell to the floor. Another dent marred the wall, this one deeper.

At the sight of the dent, at how Lance hadn’t moved out of the way — not even a little, at how Lance just stood there and looked him right in the eye as Keith chucked a stapler damn near his head, Keith’s heart just stopped. His mouth turned dry. His blood ran cold in his veins as the reality of what he’d just done slowly sank in.

He could have hurt Lance. They’d done this once before, years ago, but it wasn’t like this. It was never like this. That had been over something stupid; Lance hadn’t even been anywhere near him when he threw it that time — Lance was all the way by the door. But this time, he… he really could have hurt him.

“Are you crazy?” Keith asked in a hoarse whisper. He could feel his hands shake. “Why didn’t you move?”

Lance continued to look at him. His brows started to furrow. “Because I knew you weren’t gonna hit me.” Lance started walking toward him.

Keith immediately took a step back, hitting the desk and making Lance halt. His heart thudded wildly in his chest. “You— You didn’t know that!”

Lance’s brows furrowed even more. “Yes, I did.” Lance hesitated, biting his lip before deciding to come closer again, one hand lifting toward him. “Keith, I—”

 _“Don’t.”_ Keith squeezed his eyes shut, clenched his trembling hands into tight fists. He felt Lance drop a hand on his shoulder, and he shook it off immediately. Something rose up and fell inside him like a wave. It washed over him in a powerful crash that left a rock wedged in his throat. Lance’s hand came back, warm and light on his shoulder. “Don’t,” Keith said again, rocking back against the desk, but the hand stayed on. “I-I could’ve—” Keith tried to shove him away. But Lance planted his feet firmly on the ground and didn’t budge, no matter how hard Keith was pushing him away. “I could’ve— I could’ve hit you!”

Lance stayed right in front of him, refusing to move. He looked at Keith quietly, brows drawn together and eyes steeped deeply with baffled concern. “But you didn’t,” he just said. Then he paused before saying, softly, “I trust you, Keith. Always.”

Those words knocked the wind right out of him. Suddenly, he couldn’t stand. Suddenly, he was shaking all over and his knees gave way, and he was falling. He never hit the ground. Instead he was caught right as he fell. He tried to pull away, but Lance clamped his arms around him, over his shoulders, and pulled him in. Keith’s face dropped against Lance’s neck, the lump in his throat unbearable when the strong, familiar scent of Lance’s cologne mixed with the comforting sensation of Lance’s body pressing close to him started swarming his brain, making that whispering voice in his head start shouting in elation— _you want this, this is what you want, this is what you need; hold him, hold him tight_ — _don’t let him go_ _!_

But he refused to bring his arms up, refused to let hope sing, refused to let his heart swell from the warmth and comfort that came from being embraced by the person once most precious — _still_ most precious — to him. He refused it all; he refused every part of it, every inch, every speck of emotion and hope and thought that conjured up from a place in his heart he’d thought was long gone.

It was all still there. Lance was still there, inside that place. And now, Lance was here. Lance was standing here, holding him tight, tighter than he’d ever been held before, like he was something so cherished yet fleeting to this world, as if he were a thing that would disappear and never come back. And he had disappeared — he’d shut him out, for more than a year, for _sixteen_ months; Keith had disappeared from Lance for sixteen months, without a word or a shred of hope that he’d ached for him all those months, and Lance still held him, still fought him — fought _for_ him — still told him, _“I trust you. Always,”_ and still wanted him, whatever that meant. Lance still wanted him; really wanted him.

He let the rock in his throat float away with a laugh; tears spilled slowly from his eyes, but there was no despair sinking heavily in his chest like the weight of a gun hidden in desperation. There was only exhausted relief. His mind was a jumbled mess of numbing wonderment as he finally raised his arms up, hands clutching tightly onto the back of Lance’s shirt, and he let himself laugh and cry against the warmth of Lance’s neck, let himself be lulled by the firm strokes of Lance’s hand on his back, let himself be held, let himself feel.

His breath hitched with a lingering sob, and he swallowed it down his throat, summoning the courage and the will and the voice to say, “I’m a shitty guy to trust.”

“Yeah,” Lance laughed, holding him tighter. “You are. You fucking are.” Lance pulled away, slowly, to cup his hands around Keith’s face and look right at him with a lopsided, teary grin. “But I trust you anyway.”

It was insane, this blinding, willful trust that was thrown his way, despite everything that’s ever happened between them — all the times they’ve fought and hurt each other, all the times they avoided each other only to clash again to pick up the pieces they’ve left behind. And yes, there were peaceful times, times when they built each other up. But they seemed too few and far away in his head, distant childhood memories that seemed to stay childhood memories.

Keith swallowed, bringing a hand up to close around Lance’s wrist, feeling oddly comforted by Lance’s slow, steady pulse under his fingers. “Why do you put up with me?”

The look in Lance’s eyes turned soft, the blue of his irises melting in a deep, rich gaze filled with trust. He leaned in, pressing his forehead to Keith’s. His answer was a whisper against his lips. “Because you’re my special person.”

Keith pulled Lance in for a kiss.

 

* * *

 

The bruise wasn’t that bad, but Lance was known for pitching world-class fits, Pidge was in a mood to humor him, and Hunk had a kind and patient soul, so Keith let Lance retell the story the way he wanted to.

“And then _this_ guy,” Lance threw an accusing finger his way, “decides he’d gonna prove to me that he’s right and I’m wrong and goes in for the kill. Naturally, my lightning-fast reflexes kicked in and drop-kicked his ass — HOLY _SHIT_ THAT’S COLD!” A bag of frozen peas had come right against his face.

They were gathered in Hunk’s kitchen after Keith and Lance finally emerged from the apartment’s second bedroom. Lance had made them take a selfie together to send Hunk as an all-clear, and Hunk had shown up at the front door in less than two minutes with a grinning Pidge in tow.

“What, you didn’t think I’d skip town without Pidge, did you?” Lance had jokingly asked.

Hunk and Pidge had, apparently staked out in the apartment next door to make sure Lance and Keith wouldn’t kill each other. Shay had been in on it too, but left early to meet with her co-teaching partner to plan out the following week together.

“I thought you had lightning-fast reflexes,” Pidge mocked, pressing the frozen bag of peas harder into Lance’s face. “Iverson would’ve made you lick the bathroom floor clean for not seeing a big ass bag of peas coming right for your face.”

Keith arched an eyebrow. He didn’t know who Iverson was. Judging from the scowl on Lance’s face, Iverson was a terrible plague who walked the earth — to Lance, at least.

“Oh please,” Lance winced and took over the job of pressing frozen peas to his face, “Iverson can kiss my ass.”

“Interesting.” Pidge pushed her glasses up her face as she took a seat directly across from Lance. She waved her phone and hummed loudly. “Then, I guess you wouldn’t care if I made this my ringtone.” She tapped the screen to replay the most recent recording.

 _“Oh please_ — _Iverson can kiss my ass.”_

“Don’t you dare!” Lance lunged for the phone, dropping the bag of frozen peas on the table.

Keith clicked his tongue. “Lance, you almost spilled my coffee.” He lifted the cup off the table and cradled it in his hands. “And fix your face,” he added, picking up the frozen peas and slapping it against the bruise on Lance’s face.

“Ow! Careful — I have soft skin!”

Keith rolled his eyes. “I punched you in the face. You’ll survive getting slapped by frozen vegetables.”

Lance brought a hand over his eyes, as if he suddenly couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore. “Oh my god, you are the worst — the _worst!”_

Keith raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but you picked me anyway. So who’s the worst now?”

Lance gaped comically. “I can’t be _lieve_ —!”

Hunk cut into the conversation. “Who’s Iverson again?”

That certainly grabbed Lance’s attention. Both Pidge and Lance made gagging motions. Lance played it up by passing out afterwards, falling back on Keith’s shoulder with the back of his hand on his forehead. Keith gave Lance a consoling pat on his unbruised cheek.

Pidge scowled darkly before she answered. “The worst cluster of human DNA to have ever assembled together.”

Lance joined Pidge’s scowling party from Keith’s shoulder, looking up at him upside-down. “Yeah, he’s the reason why my beautiful plans to woo you almost went up in smoke. I mean, who the fuck tells you to ‘suck it up’ when your grandmother died?”

Keith’s eyebrows shot up. He and Hunk spoke at the same time.

“Seleste passed away?” “I’m so sorry, bro.”

Pidge pulled the hood of her sweater over her head and started snickering. Lance sat up and rolled his eyes, pressing the frozen pack of peas against his face. “And everyone says _I’m_ the oblivious one,” he muttered.

Keith exchanged a questioning look with Hunk. Hunk’s eyes flicked back and forth between Keith and Lance as he shrugged his shoulders.

Pidge finally threw her head back and laughed. “Guys, please. Lance’s gran’s not really dead. Constanza did us a favor and called the Garrison to stage a family emergency and get us out for a few days. Seleste was in the background shouting how she finally got to see Jesus for added flavor.” She winked. “It worked like a charm.”

“Yeah, except when it almost didn’t.” Lance was scowling again. “Iverson had the balls to say this was all a ruse to get me out of my flight test this week. Can you believe him? Constanza was even crying and everything! Hell, _I_ was crying!”

Pidge gave Lance a pointed look. “But you cried every day at the Garrison.”

Hunk wasn’t sympathetic on this one either. “Yeah, and technically, Iverson was right about this whole thing being a ruse. And maybe you trying to get out of your flight test.”

Keith looked between Pidge and Lance in quiet, contemplative silence. Then, looking to Lance, he asked, “You cried every day at the Garrison?”

Lance groaned and planted his face into the frozen peas. “Not _every_ day,” he finally mumbled, the tips of his ears turning pink.

At this, Pidge grinned. “He really missed his mom.”

“Shut up,” Lance hissed non-threateningly, trying to kick Pidge under the table and getting kicked instead. “Ow! You were homesick, too! Don’t try to pretend you didn’t cry the first three months you were there.”

Pidge gave Lance a flat look. “Yeah, but I didn’t try to deny it. I fully embraced my sadness and emo state of mind.” A smile stretched slowly across her face. “Unlike you, I am _very_ in touch with my feelies.”

Lance was unimpressed. “You _have_ no feelies. It’s how you and Rax get along so well. Cold-hearted no-feelies, the both of you.” Lance stuck his tongue out and made a childish _‘nyeh’_ sound.

Pidge reached over and pinched Lance’s tongue between her thumb and index finger, making him squawk indignantly. “Well, us cold-hearted no-feelies are the reason your ass even passed the flight test last week.”

“Thass dothsn’t conth!” Lance flailed and turned to Keith. “Keif! Helf!”

Keith put his coffee back on the table. “Pidge, play nice.”

Pidge withdrew her hand, wiping her fingers on her shirt. “Anything for you, my ex-roommate and midnight lover.”

Keith sipped his coffee again to hide his amusement as he watched Lance toss the bag of frozen peas across the table at Pidge and miss terribly.

Hunk caught it before it could sail too far away, and he passed it back to Lance as he pushed away from the table. “Alright, alright,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Sounds like you guys need some food in your system. This hunk o’ love’s got it covered. Anything in particular you guys starving for?”

Pidge suddenly pounded her fists rhythmically on the table. “Ba-con! Ba-con! Ba-con! Ba-con!” she cried, eyes glinting dangerously.

Lance and Keith exchanged knowing looks. The girl really liked her bacon. They were pretty sure she’d kill a guy just for a heaping plate of hot, "right off the pan," crispy and thick, center-cut bacon.

“Okay, okay, fine, bacon. Anything else?”

Lance grinned. “I’m with Pidge. Eggs too, I guess? I can still have breakfast at night, right?”

Pidge nodded solemnly as she answered, “McDonald’s serves breakfast all day, every day. Besides, this can be, like. A pre-breakfast.”

Hunk chuckled. “Alright, pre-breakfast it is.” He looked to Keith. “You want anything, bro?”

Keith shook his head. “I’m okay, thanks.”

Hunk was about to head for the fridge when Pidge suddenly pushed her mug out.

“Yo, Hunk! I need more coffee.”

Hunk made a face. “You drank three cups already.”

Pidge remained holding her mug out with a blank look.

Hunk gave a long suffering sigh. “Get it yourself. I’m not gonna be responsible for overdosing you on caffeine.”

Pidge slid out of her seat with a gleeful grin. “Say goodbye to that pot of black nector.”

Hunk chased after her, worry etched in his brow. “Wait, not the whole— _Don’t drink straight from the pot!”_

Keith sipped at his coffee and listened to Hunk trying to pull Pidge away from the coffee machine in the corner of the kitchen. When the matter was finally settled, Keith heard the two of them pulling pans out from the cabinets and set it on the stove. Soon, the sounds of hot, sizzling oil on pans and the smell of bacon and eggs cooking at the stove filled the kitchen, along with Pidge providing small talk about a bacon shortage at the Garrison with added commentary from Hunk.

He found a different kind of comfort filling him up, one that wasn’t quite the same kind of warmth as when Lance held him, but a good warmth regardless. It was the warmth of family, of friends— of being home. He missed this, this feeling of being home. He hadn’t felt this in a long, long time, and it was a wonderful feeling to immerse himself back in it.

He felt another warmth touching him, this one familiar; it was the touch of someone he knew, someone he considered precious, someone he loved. Keith looked down at his hand on his lap and saw Lance’s hand slowly laying over it, moving carefully with feather-light touches, the way one would stroke a bird upon first gaining its trust, upon it perching delicately on your finger after a long session of gentle sweet talking and lying open and bare for it to fly to.

Keith turned his hand over in his lap and laced their fingers together, squeezing tight. He looked at Lance, who sat beside him.

Lance didn’t meet his eye. Instead, he was staring intensely at the table, hiding most of his face with the melting bag of frozen peas. A red flush bloomed all over his face and more, turning the tips of his ears red and even spreading down his neck.

Keith sipped his coffee again, hiding his smile behind his cup as he held Lance’s hand under the table and stole glances at the far-reaching blush, wondering just how far that blush went down and knowing, with a delicate dusting of red growing on his own face, that he would get to find out some day, as their relationship deepened and brought them closer together as one.

It would take some time for them to be one, for they needed to re-learn each other, figure out how they fit together again, see how they could balance each other out again. But until then, they would take their relationship step by step, allow their hearts and minds to guide them, let the comfort grow between them so that, until they finally got there, to that step of complete and utter understanding, they would just play along with whatever came their way. **(2)**

“Do they honestly think nobody can tell they’re holding hands?”

“…Pidge, stop drinking coffee from the pot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(1)** There were a few readers who interpreted Keith's discomfort to the word "crazy" as him being sensitive to mental illnesses. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case. And I didn't want to clarify it back then because it would have spoiled the final confrontation of the story.
> 
> Keith hears the words "crazy" and "psycho" and thinks of Nyma. He relates to her; he understands how she's become what she's known for. He feels, almost, that he could have been her, were it not for the people he already has in his life. So to him, hearing these words have become an emotional trigger. The reason he reacts negatively every time he hears the word "crazy" is because he acknowledges that Nyma is a toxic friend but can't seem to cut her out. He is also reminded that he, too, has the same wild, uncontrollable emotions that Nyma has, and this disturbs him. While Keith knows that what Nyma does is wrong, and while he has realized they have very different moralities, he knows that there's still a part of him that can be reckless and dangerous like Nyma.
> 
>  **(2)** I have always been struck by the nuances behind the idiom "just play along." There's the implication of trust that is so important for a person to collaborate on, support, and even extend whatever plan or suggestion (however inane) they are thrown with. You either need to be entirely trusting of the person to carry it through, or highly experienced at reading people in order to predict and carry out the best next steps. The absence of trust is what makes a lot of relationships fall apart.
> 
> In a partnership of any nature, but especially a romantic one, trust is essential to having a healthy, communicative relationship. Trust is defined not only by how much faith you are willing to place into your partner,, but also in yourself. You not only need to believe your partner is worthy of your trust, you also need to believe that the two of you can (eventually) work as a single unit for the relationship to be successful.
> 
> Also, have your squad throw you a late breakfast support party with bacon. That always helps.


	11. GET REKT, SHIRO!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why do _I_ have to be the bait?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoooo… Damn, it's been a while. How's everybody doing? Y'all doin' okay? I hope so; and if not, I hope this makes things a little easier to bear.
> 
> In the spirit of how this fic began, this chapter concludes the story in the same way: gag-fic humor and… not a hair salon (though, that was certainly the original plan). It's not anything serious; just going back to the old, light-hearted spirit of Just Play Along's origins. Sort of. If you're looking for more development around Keith and Lance, go check out "[Everything Stays](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8767573)," a non-chronological prequel showcasing how all of this (the crush, the drifting, the angst, etc.) began.
> 
> Lastly, if you enjoyed Just Play Along, consider hitting up my other klance fics: my weird High School AU, “[Blindsided](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7610761),” or my merlance AU, “[E O Mai](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7746397).” <3 Or just [send me some prompts of your own](http://aestover91.tumblr.com/ficprompts). :V I don't mind.

He got two pats on his cheek and a quick _“Babe, wake up”_ as his only warning before the blankets were ripped right off. Sunlight struck him through the blinds of his window. He curled into himself on his side with a groan, trying to get away from the light, if only for a little while. The gentle, soft sound of laughter followed by a puff of air blowing over his ear made the corners of his mouth turn up and he laughed. Turning, he stretched an arm out to give a playful shove. “Lance, let me sleep—”

Keith fell off the bed and woke up on the cold floor of his dark apartment, alone and confused.

A sharp pang of disappointment seized his heart. He sighed quietly, throwing an arm over his eyes, and listened to the silence filling the room. _Lance wasn’t here anymore,_ he told himself; _he flew back yesterday, remember?_

Keith lifted his arm from his face and dumped it on the floor, where the rest of his body lay. A cold draft oozed over him like a misty cloud in a forest. It was the same one he and Hunk have been trying to get rid of for weeks. Lance claimed the draft didn’t exist — _“What’re you talking about? My old room’s just fine! There’s no draft in there. If there is, it’s probably all Keith’s fault.”_

That got him laughing again. You would imagine that being in a relationship would mean less cattiness and more partnership. But it was as if nothing at all had changed. They were still the same; Lance and Keith, neck and neck, bickering for days and always in each other’s hair. Except, now, sometimes they stayed shoulder to shoulder in comfortable silence, doing nothing but just sitting down together or lying down together or walking together. Sometimes, their fingers found each other, entwining slowly and staying woven tightly even as they traded barbs and argued over who was right and who was wrong. Sometimes, they’d catch each other staring — and this time, instead of looking away or brushing it off with a grin or a smart remark, they opened up to each other, smiling fondly or leaning into each other or — or kissing, even.

They didn’t kiss often; he didn’t trust himself with the rawness of his own emotions _(he was afraid of them, of how intense everything was),_ and Lance held himself back to keep Keith from feeling flighty and drawing into himself. So, no, they weren’t perfect — _yet,_ but it was okay, because they’d talked it over and they were fine with letting things run its course. Slow and steady, they’d said. And slow and steady they went, with clasped hands and soft, tender looks, leaning into one another for support, touching foreheads at nights when they were together and whispering, _“I love you. Always.”_

He remembered the first time they kissed— as ‘ _them’_ for the first time, not back when they’d tried to sort things out in this room. He remembered visiting the Garrison with Ricardo and Constanza, remembered them sneaking out on one of the hoverbikes, taking it out to the middle of nowhere with the stars of the galaxy alight overhead. He remembered watching the way Lance’s eyes lit up, just like the brightest of stars, cheeks flushed as he rambled on and on about the ever-expanding universe. He remembered reaching out with his hands and smoothing his thumbs over those cheeks, dusted pink and red; remembered Lance closing the gap between their faces so fast, he forgot how to breathe.

He thought back to how it felt to tangle his fingers in Lance’s hair, to press and hold their bodies close together and hear the soft, quiet sounds he never dreamed he’d one day hear. He remembered was it was like to feel Lance sneaking hands under his clothes and light him on fire; he remembered how his insides coiled hot and tight when Lance gave him a wicked, lopsided grin, guiding his hands lower and lower, saying — _“I wanna watch you.”_

It was blissfully painful, to remember everything while he was cold and alone in a dark room that once belonged — still belonged, in a way — to the very person he was aching to see.

He crawled back into bed, diving beneath the covers, and kept as quiet as he could as he tried to remember what it was like to have Lance touch him.

 

* * *

 

_“Yeah, I don’t think I can make it.”_

Pidge blew a raspberry and pointed her thumb down. _“Boo, weak. You didn’t even try.”_

They were Skyping on a Sunday night, all four of them, the clock on the verge of striking midnight on the East Coast while it was hitting close to ten two time-zones over. The Garrison cadets had a rare day off, thanks to most of the officers needing to convene off-base for a review of some secretive, intergalactic flight.

They’d been Skyping uninterrupted for two hours thanks to that, catching up on months of gossip and news and updates that would’ve normally taken them weeks. They were on the last major info drop of the day, and the top priority born from that was finding a way to make sure everyone was on board with the plan, ASAP.

 _“Oh, I’m sorry — Not everyone can be Steele’s favorite and get what they want.”_ Lance kept leaning too close to his camera. Three-fourths of his face filled up his screen. It startled Keith’s cat, who jumped off his desk and dug its claws onto Hunk’s shoulder.

“Ow,” said Hunk, trying to pry kitty claws off him. “Ow. Ow. Ow, ow, ow—”

_“Yeah, and not everyone can crash the simulator ten times in a row.”_

_“Quit bringing that up!”_

Keith collected his cat into his arms with an apologetic look. It wriggled out of his hold and climbed onto the table again, where it flicked its tail in Keith’s face before turning back and trying to lick his chin. “Stop that,” he muttered, poking the cat in the side and eliciting an annoyed meow.

_“Not my fault you can’t stay straight.”_

_“I can stay straight longer than you can!”_

“What’s her name again?” Hunk asked over Lance and Pidge’s Skype argument.

“Ji Hae.”

Hunk snorted. “Isn’t that the girl your mom kept trying to get you to date back in high school?”

“Yep.”

_“That’s weird. I thought you were gay.”_

Lance growled. _“I’m gonna deck you in the combat room, you little—”_

Keith changed the subject. “Can’t you say it’s another family emergency? It worked just fine the last time you left.”

Pidge nodded. _“Good point.”_ In the background, her roommate Clyde was spinning in a swiveling chair. **(1)**

 _“He’s gotta be caaareful,”_ they sing-songed, _“He’s only got two emergencies left.”_ Clyde stopped spinning abruptly, shaking their head and looking nauseous. That didn’t stop them from talking. _“Also, he needs to show documentation for his leaves now, since he got caught sneaking alcohol into the barracks.”_

They all got a zoomed-in shot of Lance’s mouth. _“Yo, Zaks! Zip it!”_

Keith gave Lance an unimpressed look.

In contrast, Hunk gave a shocked gasp. “Lance! Are you _trying_ to get kicked out?!”

 _“That_ totally _wasn’t me!”_ Lance protested hotly. _“That was all Rax! I swear! He must’ve known somebody snitched about his stash and somehow dumped it all on me!”_

 _“Well, whoever it was doesn’t matter anymore, since you’re the one who got written up,”_ Clyde continued. _“So you’re gonna need to present pretty solid evidence if you want this leave to count as a ‘family emergency.’”_

“Actually,” Hunk cut in, flicking the white tail of Keith’s cat out of his face, “since Keith and Lance are practically _married_ now—”

“We’re not married.” _“No we aren’t!”_

“—and Shiro is basically, like, Keith’s second dad…” Hunk splayed his fingers in an imitation of fireworks. “Boom, baby. Family emergency. That’s it, case closed. You’re comin’ home, buddy. Shiro’s waitin’ for ya. Better get here before it’s too late!”

Keith took his cat into his lap before it could try to climb up Hunk’s face again. It only protested a little bit before dashing off his lap and slinking away, dejected. Keith had zero pity for it.

 _“Guys, you’re making it sound like Shiro’s dying or something,”_ said Pidge.

 _“Or_ something,” said Lance, banging his hands on the desk, _“He’s getting married! And I! Can’t! Make it! ”_

Keith frowned. “Pidge, can’t your dad do anything?”

Lance pounded his desk again. _“Hey, yeah! Your dad’s, like, a genius hero or something here. He can take you and Matt, and then he can take me!”_

Pidge sighed, dumping her face into the palm of her hand. _“Sorry, guys. I don’t think my dad’ll even be able to make it. He’s been asked to double-check computations on all approximates of the Kerberos mission.”_

 _“But, but, but!”_ Lance’s room turned on a slant, but his face remained centered. It looked like he was tilting his laptop. _“Your dad can vouch for me! He’s reliable, and the entire Garrison likes him. They’ll let me go if he asks, right?!”_

Pidge opened her mouth and then shut it, furrowing her brow. _“Oh, wow. Why didn’t I think of that?”_

Lance grinned and produced a pair of aviators out of nowhere. _“Look out, Dr. Holt—_ _There’s a new genius in town,”_ he flicked the shades on his face and fired two finger-guns at the screen, _“And he is smokiiiin’.”_

“Weed, probably,” Keith added with an arched brow and grin. Beside him, Hunk gave a boisterous laugh.

Lance crossed his arms and scowled. _“Aw, come on!”_

Pidge leaned into the screen and squinted her eyes. _“Lance, are those… Are those_ Iverson’s _sunglasses?”_

 _“Yeee_ ep,” Lance answered, folding his arms behind his head and propping his feet up. Then he suddenly leaned into the screen with a scowl. _“Zaks! You better keep your mouth shut about this!”_

In the background of Pidge’s screen, Clyde wheeled across the room in the swiveling chair. _“Whaaat? You want me to_ lie? _To my_ superiors? _Gosh, that doesn’t sound like a very good thing to do.”_

 _“I mean it, Clyde!”_ Lance’s screen shook; he was probably shaking his laptop. _“Snitches get stitches!”_

Pidge gave a mock gasp. _“Are you threatening a fellow cadet, Lance?”_

 _“He iiiiis,”_ said Clyde, rolling across the screen again. _“Let’s report him, Pidge.”_

 _“No! No reporting! You can’t report me, we’re friends! We’re_ _—_ _”_ Lance leaned so far in that the only thing they could see was his left eye and part of his nose. _“I was smarter than you today!”_

_“Yeah, for like, two seconds. And who was the one who gave up without trying at first? Oh, right. You.”_

_“Oh, yeah?! Well, I_ _—”_

A loud, shrill bell went off from both Pidge and Lance’s screens. A panicked look came over their faces.

Pidge cursed while Clyde started throwing off their shirt and and pants and jumped into their Garrison uniform. _“Shit, another one? See ya, guys.”_ Pidge’s screen went black and quickly disappeared.

“Uh,” said Hunk, turning to Lance, who was still online, “I take it this is a normal, everyday thing over there?”

“Is this one of your drills?” asked Keith.

Lance was hopping into the grey and orange uniform he never stopped complaining about as he answered his friends. _“Yep! Gotta run. Literally.”_ Right before his screen blacked out, Lance perched the aviators on top of his head and looked out at them one last time. _“I can’t wait to see you guys,”_ he said, the look in his eyes turning soft.

Keith didn’t have enough time to say goodbye. The screen went dark just as the words of farewell were at the tip of his tongue. He stared at the screen as Skype redirected him to a chat-log between him and Lance. The time stamps dated their most recent conversation as just four hours old. It felt more like four years. He felt his chest tighten with the bitterness of heartache, the kind you get from wanting to be with someone so far away, especially after wasting more than a decade thinking that they could never want you back the way you want them.

Quietly, Hunk’s arm came around his shoulders. He was squeezed in a warm hug. “We’ll see them soon.”

The comforting tenderness in Hunk’s voice managed to chase away the frustration from his thoughts. “Yeah,” said Keith, starting to smile again. “We will.”

Keith had Lance’s soft gaze stuck in his head even when he and Hunk went out for drinks later that evening.

 

* * *

4 People  
  
**Today** 1:14 PM  
Lance  
MAKE WAY FOR LANCE, BITCHES  
  
IT’S HAPPENING  
  
**Today** 3:39 PM  
Big Man  
????  
  
did you pass the flight simulator?  
  
Pidge  
LOLOLOL yeah right  
  
like that’s gonna happen  
  
Lance  
yo hop off  
  
i’m a fucking pro, aiight?  
  
i can thread any ship through any course  
  
Pidge  
is that why you crash and burn all the time  
  
Lance  
that’s why they call me the tailor  
  
Pidge  
really?  
  
never heard anybody call you that  
  
but i’ve heard people call you The Meme  
  
Lance  
I’M BOTH  
  
if this isn't going to be real conversation, i'm leaving  
  
again  
  
Lance  
okay okay  
  
Pidge  
our trip was approved  
  
Lance  
I WASGOANNA SAY IT  
  
Pidge  
yeah, after like three hours maybe  
  
Lance  
щ(ಠ益ಠщ )  
  
i'm leaving  
  
Lance  
NO YOU CAN’T  
  
WE TOLD YOU THE REASON FOR THE GROUP CHAT  
  
YOU SAID YOU’D STAY IF WE TOLD YOU THE REASON  
  
that's not what i said  
  
Lance  
SO YOU CAN’T LEAVE NOW  
  
YES YOU DID  
Pidge  
nah  
  
keef said what he said so dont get upset  
  
Lance  
……………  
  
wow  
  
so this is how you’re gonna be  
  
Pidge  
we’re coming a week early to plan the celebratory party and the bachelor/bachelorette party  
  
okay  
  
Lance  
@bae and hunk: does zheng he still live next door?  
  
the one who plays league all day?  
  
i think so  
  
Lance  
perfect  
  
tell him i’m coming over to collect my debt  
  
?!  
  
Pidge  
whoa whatt he fuck  
  
that’s sounds madd shady  
  
Lance  
You’ll seeee~~~  
  
**Today** 8:41 PM  
Big Man  
sorry guys, i was giving a lecture  
  
good to hear that everything worked out! can’t wait to see you both!!!  
  
also, Lance, what do you mean collect a debt? did you loan him money?  
  
**Today** 9:02 PM  
Big Man  
guys?  


 

* * *

 

This was _not_ what Keith had in mind when Lance mentioned throwing Shiro a pre-wedding celebratory party.

“I can’t believe we’re gonna shoot Shiro with guns,” Hunk said as soon as he got out of Keith’s car. He looked and sounded like he’d been trapped in a car full of arguing brats for four hours. Keith felt sort of bad. But then he remembered Hunk’s horrendous driving and decided— nah, he didn’t feel bad at all.

“Shhh!” Lance slapped a hand against Hunk’s mouth. “Don’t give us away!”

Pidge leaned against the passenger’s side of the car and tucked her nose behind the high collar of her thick jacket. “Would you just relax? Shiro’s not even here yet.”

Keith saw the irritation flashing across Lance’s face before he heard it. “Yeah, but he’ll be here any minute now, _Katie.”_

Pidge kicked mud Lance’s way. “Shut your quiznak.”

Lance got in Pidge’s face. _“You_ shut your quiznak!”

“Don’t use my word!”

“Ex _cuse_ me?! Quiznak is _my_ word!”

Before anything else could happen, Keith pulled Lance back with an arm around his waist. “Quit dragging it, Lance. It’s not even a real word.”

Hunk frowned. “Yeah, you guys’ve been fighting over stupid things the whole drive over. It’s getting annoying.” **(2)**

“Well, Lance was hogging up the entire back seat!”

“I have long legs! And we all switched seats because of you! So you can’t complain anymore, your argument’s _canceled!”_

Keith tightened his arm around Lance. “Stop. Shouting,” he gritted through clenched teeth, his own patience thinning fast. There was only so much of Lance’s pampered diva self he could take in one day; going through a four-hour car ride of Lance complaining he wasn’t getting enough leg room and fighting Pidge over practically everything was enough to get his nerves on edge. And that was even after Keith stopped the car and made Hunk drive so Pidge could sit up front and  dumped Keith in the back with Diva!Lance. And Lance _still_ fought with Pidge.

“Keith! Tell Pidge I have long legs!”

Keith gave a long-suffering sigh. “Lance has long legs.”

“And not _just_ long legs — I’ve got legs for days!” Lance hollered, wiggling out of Keith’s hold to roll up the leg of his sweatpants and the compression pants he wore underneath. He slammed his foot onto the window of the passenger’s side right next to Pidge’s head. “For _DAYS!”_ he repeated for emphasis.

Pidge smacked her fist against Lance’s leg. “Get your hairy bird legs out of my face!”

“Bird legs?! My legs are manly and beautiful! They are to _die_ for! Tell her, Keith!”

Luckily, Keith didn’t have to say anything like that because the argument went in a totally different direction. _Un_ luckily, the argument went in a totally different direction. As in, it stopped being an argument and straight-up turned physical.

Pidge bared her teeth and chomped on Lance’s hairy shin. Lance yelped in pain and tried to grab Pidge in a headlock.

Alarmed, Keith immediately jumped in to pull the two apart. Hunk did the same. The two of them shouted over Lance and Pidge screaming bloody murder at each other.

_“Get back here so I can chew your fucking legs off!” “I knock your fucking teeth out first!”_

“Guys, what the fuck?!” “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Everyone calm down!”

It was to this scene of Keith wrapping both of his arms around Lance’s waist, Hunk picking Pidge right off the ground and hoisting her over his shoulder, and all four of them screaming at the top of their lungs that a staff member from Cousins Paintball approached them. **(3)**

“Yo.”

At the sound of a new, unfamiliar voice, the entire group stopped what they were doing and turned around.

The staff member was a tall Asian guy with a stoic face and messy black hair. Everything he was wearing had the Adidas logo on it. His name was Zheng He. This, they knew because his name was stitched onto the front of his tracksuit _._

And also because Lance called out to him.

Lance, still held in Keith’s arms, weakly raised a hand in greeting. “Hey, Zheng He. Thanks for having us here. Aaand for not coming to kick us out of the park.”

Zheng He didn’t say anything.

At that, Lance looked slightly panicked. “You, uh. You didn’t come to kick us out of the park, did you? Cause, uh. We’re not even in the park yet. We’re still in the parking lot. So _technically,_ you can’t kick us out of the park _yet_ _—_ _”_

 _“ZHEEEENG HEEEE!”_ someone shouted as they sprinted across the parking lot. It was another Asian guy, wearing the same tracksuit uniform as Zheng He. He was bright-eyed and expressive, his hair dyed a gleaming silver that Keith thought was done quite well, and he had black piercings in both ears. He was barely out of breath when he finally joined their group, only needing to take two deep breaths before he turned on his stoic friend to shout: “Zheng He! You left my sister and her friend behind! And _me!_ How could you?!”

“You all have legs, don’t you?”

“We had no idea where you were going!”

By this time, Hunk had returned Pidge to the ground and Keith had, for the most part, let go of Lance. His hand still lingered on Lance’s side, resting on the curve where Lance’s hip began to slope down.

Zheng He casually slung an arm over his friend’s shoulders. “This is Dou Xian,” Zheng He introduced, bringing his friend in closer. “He and his friends are also gonna be helping you guys out.”

Immediately, Dou Xian turned to them and gave them all a friendly smile. “Hey! Welcome to Cousins Paintball! I can’t wait to help you out on your visit today.”

“Thanks, man.” “Appreciate it.” “Oh, nice.” “Cool.”

As they were collectively responding to Dou Xian’s greeting, they spotted two girls exiting the visitor’s center and stepping into the parking lot. One of them had large sunglasses on top of her sideswept bangs and a face full of make-up. The other had vibrant orange hair — Keith thought the color was a little _too_ vibrant for her — and a tattoo of a green and blue fishtail stretching down the side of her neck.

 _Holy shit,_ Keith thought, staring at the tattoo, _that’s Jessica Nguyen’s little sister._ **(4)**

“Oh! We found them!”

“Zheng He! Why don’t you check your phone?! We’ve been texting you!”

Zheng He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The mean one is Dou Xian’s sister, Li Ying. The one with the bright hair is Jennifer.”

Jennifer seemed to recognize him immediately, because her entire face lit up upon spotting him. “I know you!” she exclaimed with a bright smile. “Aren’t you the guy my sister Jessica likes? The one she takes selfies with all the time after she gets her hair done?”

The way she said it, it sounded as if she meant her sister _‘liked him’_ liked him. And that was exactly how Lance took it too, if the way how fast his eyebrows shot up were any indication. Lance slowly turned to face him. “Who’s Jessica?”

Keith didn’t like the way this conversation was starting off. “She’s a regular at the salon,” he said honestly. Then, he added, “She’s the one going out with Wes.” Wesley was one of Lance’s old buddies through Zheng He, back when he was going through a League phase. He figured that would be enough to dissipate the awkward tension.

“Oh.” Lance gave him a pointed stare. “Do you take selfies with all of your customers?”

Keith dragged a hand over his face. “Lance, are you seriously—”

“Hey, I’m just wondering if you take selfies with all of your customers, since apparently that’s something you do with _Jessica_ _—”_

“I don’t, but—”

“—whom I notice you’re also on a first-name basis with, by the way.”

Keith scowled. “Who even uses _whom?”_ he asked, nit-picking and being shitty because now Lance really _was_ getting on his nerves.

“A lot of people! Like me!” Lance snapped.

Jennifer was quick to speak up, her voice high and nervous. “Ohhhkay, um. I’m, like, so sorry, but— Jessica just got engaged? She totally doesn’t— I mean, like, when I said she _likes_ him I meant that, like, he’s the only person she wants doing her hair? Y’know? Like… Yeah, just. Normal liking; not like, _‘liking’_ liking.”

“Do you, like, ever stop talking? Like this?” Zheng He asked.

“Shut up,” Li Ying hissed, “You’ve only got two facial expressions — eyes open and eyes closed. So don’t go shitting on people who can actually express themselves.”

Jennifer, flushing red and sporting a deep frown, rose to defend herself. “Yeah! A-And what’s wrong with the way I talk?”

“Uh, guys?” Hunk cut into the conversation and waved his phone. “I hate to interrupt this very lovely conversation, but Allura says they’re almost here. Like, ‘10 minutes away’ almost here.”

“Shit.” “Aw, fuck.” “Dammit.”

Dou Xian and Zheng He exchanged looks. At least, that’s what Dou Xian was trying to do; Zheng He didn’t return the look and just looked bored. The girls also showed little interest in this update, Li Ying standing with crossed arms and impatiently tapping her foot while Jennifer, still frowning, idly twirled a strand of her hair and stared at her phone.

Finally, Dou Xian spoke up: “Who’s Allura?”

“Their friend,” Zheng He replied.

Dou Xian’s expression flatlined. “That’s… That’s helpful, I guess.”

“They’re not here to play a regular game of paintball,” Zheng He continued. “They’re gonna set one of their friends up to get splattered.”

“O…kay,” said Dou Xian, looking at the group before looking back at his friend. “I have no idea what that even means. Is that an official paintball term? Should I know what it means?”

“I don’t know what that means, either,” said Zheng He. “I’m just quoting Lance.”

“Ah…?” Dou Xian turned back to them. “Which one’s Lance?”

Keith watched as Hunk and Pidge jabbed their index fingers forward in sync. Keith just stayed silent and let Lance take over.

“That would be me,” Lance chirped, raising a hand and waggling his fingers with a proud grin. “So, here’s what we’d like to do…”

 

* * *

 

A long, long, time ago, there was a very handsome and very capable young boy. He was the strongest kid in the neighborhood, but also one of the gentlest. He looked out for others, and gained the reputation of the Gentle Tiger. But that name got drop-kicked out of the water because the kid said he didn’t like tigers, and then the white kids said, _“It’s just a thing_ _—_ _You know, like ‘Asian Tigers,’ ‘Gentle Tiger’?”_ To which the boy replied, _“_ … _That’s kinda racist.”_ So, everyone just called the boy by his name — Shiro. _“But my name’s Takashi. Shiro’s just a nickname, and_ — _”_

Shiro was an ally to all kids in need. He climbed trees to get to your cat. He was willing to get into Old Arty’s yard to get your football back — cause Old Arty only ever liked Shiro, out of all the neighborhood kids. He babysitted toddlers for free. He organized a bootleg weekend youth club by putting what little Boy Scouts experience he had to good work. He was great in school and helped you with your homework. He was Whitestone’s favorite boy. **(5)**

Except if your name was Keith.

To Keith, Shiro was just annoying. Especially because he and Shiro’s family were the only Asian families in an entirely white neighborhood and their parents spent every waking moment joking about how they could practically be related despite being from two totally different worlds. Needless to say, Keith saw a lot of Shiro around when he was growing up. Heck, his parents even treated him like their second son — even if Shiro was five years older than Keith. But that wasn’t why he found him annoying.

It was because Shiro fucking knew Keith had the hots for Lance. And he refused to shut up about it.

> _“Keeeith, your boooyfriend is heeere!”_
> 
> _“Awww, your face is all red after Lance held your hand!” “It was a high-five!” “So cute.”_
> 
> _“Hey, Lance! Did you know Keith talks about you all the time? In his sleep?”_

Luckily, the teasing abruptly ended when he was eleven, back when Lance went out with his first girlfriend.

> _“…Wow. You really like him, don’t you?”_

He was still annoying.

> _“Hey Lance_ _—_ _Matt and I were planning on going to the premiere of Star Wars, but we can’t go. Want our tickets? You and Keith can go instead!”_
> 
> _“Hey, Keith, I’m real sorry about this, but Matt can’t make it to the brother-sister event at her school, so I’m going in his place. But you and Lance should still head to the aquarium together! It’ll be fun!”_
> 
> _“Sorry, guys, I’m_ _— (_ _coughcough)_ _—_ _sick and can’t come with you to the stadium. You two should_ _— (_ _coughcough)_ _—_ _just go without me. Have fun!”_

A great, supportive guy, but still annoying.

On top of all that, there was that one time when the gang went paintballing and Shiro beat the shit out of them single-handedly — literally. Granted, he did tag-team with Allura, but she dropped out after she got a call from her babysitter _(“What do you mean you can’t find Lotor?? How could you lose a two-year-old child in a one-room apartment?!”)._ Also, Shiro bribed Zheng He for extra ammo.

> _“It wasn’t a bribe. He purchased them.”_
> 
> _“It says right there that’s there’s a limit of 100 rounds per person! You gave him 500 rounds!”_
> 
> _“No, he purchased them.”_

Now, things were different. The four of them had grown: two of them had military training, one was a certified engineering genius, and Keith could actually manage his anger now. They weren’t the awkward college kids fighting over who gave which teammate away and who made which person fall out of a tree and — “ _Whaddya mean we’re getting kicked out of the park?? We didn’t know we weren’t allowed to climb the trees!_ ”

Also, Allura was on their side this time. Because Shay was babysitting Lotor for free. _(“Yes, Allura, I have experience with children. … How much experience? Well, I_ do _teach middle school…”)_

Their plan to KO Shiro was simple, but required teamwork and perfect timing. First, they needed to get Shiro into thinking this was a three-way battle royale to minimize him catching onto their plan. That, they did by asking Zheng He to bring in his crew so Shiro could be under the impression that this game was Black Team versus Blue Team versus Red Team. Lance volunteered to be the first guy out, taken out by Jennifer, and pitched a beautiful fit within earshot of Shiro to cinch the belief that all three teams were, in fact, not working together.

While all that was happening, Li Ying and and Dou Xian were hiding in wait at the convergence point while Lance and Pidge hid themselves in the trees (with staff permission) and called the shots. The task of leading Shiro into the convergence zone was left to Hunk and Allura. Hunk would be the bait, leading Shiro across the field and toward the thick grove of trees. There, Allura would prompt Shiro to go into the trees by doing a Leeroy Jenkins.

Or, as they liked to call it, ‘doing a Keith.’

Once Shiro got in, they would all strike as one and take him down, once and for all.

> _“The evil is defeated!”_
> 
> _“Lance, stop it.”_
> 
> _“Aw, you’re no fun.”_

It wasn’t the best plan, but Keith could still get behind it. He wasn’t about to miss out on a chance to see Shiro covered head to toe in paint. All thirst for revenge aside, there was still one thing he really didn’t agree with.

“Why do _I_ have to be the bait? Why do you even need a second bait?”

Pidge and Hunk answered him. _“Insurance?”_ _“Uhhhh, cause you’re his favorite?”_

Keith scowled. “Insurance, my ass. And I’m not his favorite. Do you want a list of the shit he did when we were growing up? When we were kids, he convinced me mothman lived in my backyard, so I camped out for a week while he took pictures and showed all his friends.”

Lance’s voice crackled through the feed. _“Yeah, but he also punched a guy for pushing you down the slide in the second grade. Actually, he helped you a lot in the second grade.”_

“Are you kidding me?! In the second grade, he told me I could get me to the moon if I swung really high and jumped off the swing! I broke my arm in two places!”

Lance cackled. _“Pfft! Ha ha! Ohhh, yeah, I remember that!”_

 _“Keith, you can’t blame Shiro for you being gullible as fuck,”_ Pidge rationalized.

“It was the second grade! I was eight!”

 _“Black Lion’s in position,”_ said Hunk, immediately getting their attention. He sounded breathless, breathing coming out in huffs as if he were running at a great speed. _“But I don’t think the plan’s gonna work. He’s not crossing the field; he’s avoiding it entirely and circling around. I think he’s caught onto us.”_

 _“What?!”_ “No way!” _“Which one of you squealed? Keith?!”_

Keith grit his teeth at Lance’s accusation. “Why would I give up the chance of shooting paintballs at the guy who was basically the bane of my existence?”

_“Because you’re family?”_

“We’re not related!” Keith hissed, trying to keep quiet but still convey the level of irritated exasperation he was feeling. “We were just neighbors! We’re not even the same nationality!”

 _“Yeah,”_ Pidge laughed, _“But according to you and your AP Lit speech, we’re aaaall connected.”_

 _“Shit, shit, shit!”_ Hunk made some kind of pained noise and grunted as the sound of dirt and gravel flying in the air filled the comm, _“False alarm. Shiro hasn’t caught on. He was just trying to take me down. I’m out, by the way.”_

“That’s okay, Hunk.” _“Aw, Shiro got Hunk?” “Whaaat?”_

_“Nah, it was Allura. Gotta maintain her cover, right? She’s a good shot, too. Caught me all the way across the field.”_

_“Yaaaas,”_ said Lance, _“Slay, queen.”_

Keith heard Pidge chuckle. _“Steele would love a shot like that.”_

 _“Speaking of shots,”_ said Lance, _“Does it bother anyone else how Iverson never gives a damn about how well we can shoot, but is extremely invested in our morning drills?”_

Keith let a few seconds of silence pass through the team. Out of romantic obligation and mild personal curiosity, Keith decided to take the bait “What’s your morning drill like?”

 _“Running.”_ It was Pidge who answered. _“To hell and back.”_

_“More like to infinity and beyond! Or to a galaxy far, far away…”_

“Those are all one-way trips.”

 _“You shouldn’t have said anything,”_ said Pidge, _“Now Lance is just gonna keep talking.”_

Keith felt his lips twist into a wry smile. “It’s Lance. He’d keep talking either way.”

_“Gee, thanks.”_

_“Wait, wait, wait,”_ said Hunk, _“Shooting? Why’re you shooting at the Garrison? What’re you shooting at?”_

_“Aliens.” “Asteroids.”_

A low whistle passed through the brief silence in the feed. It was followed by Hunk singing a little tune under his breath: _“One of those things is not like the other…”_

_“What are you TALKING about? Helloooo? Space?? That’s the common denominator!”_

_“Lance!”_ hissed Pidge, _“you’re gonna give us away!”_

 _“Oh, shoot,”_ Lance whispered. _“She’s right. Keith, he’s heading your way. On your_ — **CHHHHH** — **”**

Keith yanked his helmet off, the sharp sound of static a piercing echo in his ears. Through the static, he heard Pidge’s voice, shouting, _“_ _—re_ _hit! W_ _—i_ _t!”_ Muttering a curse under his breath, Keith tossed his helmet to the side and—

An ice cold grip seized him suddenly by the back of his neck. Keith followed his instincts and rolled left. He was on his back just as two shots splattered black paint on the ground where he lay. When his vision stopped spinning, Keith found himself face to face with the barrel-end of a paintball gun.

Standing right in front of him was Zheng He, looking down at him with a neutral expression. “You’re Keith, right?”

“What are you doing?” Keith hissed. “This isn’t part of the plan!”

Zheng He stared at him calmly. “I got bored. We don’t usually open on Fridays, so there’s no one else around.”

“So you’re just going around shooting people?!”

Zheng He frowned, glancing to the side. Then he looked back at Keith and grinned. “Yep. Sounds about right.”

Keith wanted to smack the guy upside the head. But before he could actually do it, two unexpected things happened.

First, someone shouted for him.

“Keith! I got you!”

Second, three clear shots rang out. Keith watched Zheng He suddenly get hit in the chest, black paint splattering all over his camo jacket.

“Ah,” was all Zheng He said before he fell backwards to the ground. He didn’t get back up. He didn’t even move. His eyes were even closed.

Keith nudged Zheng He with his foot. “…Are you okay?”

“I’m out.” Zheng He answered without opening his eyes.

“…You know this is just a game, right?”

Zheng He didn’t reply to this one.

Keith didn’t say anything else to Zheng He after that. He just accepted the fact that Lance would always have weird friends.

He heard someone coming up behind him. Before he could grab his paintball gun, he felt two stinging hits on his shoulder.

“Fuck!” he cried, clapping a hand over the back of his shoulder because it fucking hurt like a bitch. _That_ was gonna leave a bruise. He whirled around. “What the hell?!”

Shiro jogged over, grinning. “Sorry, Keith,” he said, offering a hand to him and actually looking apologetic. “We’re not on the same team this time, remember?”

Keith scowled. “Actually, _we_ are.” He aimed his gun right at Shiro’s chest.

Shiro froze. “Uh, Keith?” From the look on his face, there was more to what he was going to say. Probably like, _“You know you’re out, right?”_ or _“Don’t be a cheap shot, Keith.”_ But it didn’t come out, because at that moment, five people shot out from their hiding places — Lance and Pidge, both covered in black paint, hanging upside-down from their respective trees to the left, while Dou Xian and Li Ying sprang out from the bushes to the right. Jennifer came out of the forest from Shiro’s front, and Hunk and Allura came to close the circle from behind.

Shiro gave the group a slack-jawed expression. Then he shut his mouth and sagged his shoulders in a sad acceptance of surrender. “Oh, boy.”

Allura, with a wicked grin, was the one who shot first. Following her shot, everyone else joined to splatter Whitestone’s favorite boy with a rainbow assortment of paint. And over all this, everyone shouted in perfect unison:

_“GET REKT, SHIRO!”_

 

* * *

 

“I am _not_ sitting next to Lance.”

“Well, I’m driving, so—”

“Like hell you are! You have _road rage!_ How did you even get your license?!”

“…I didn’t. I don’t have a license.”

“YOU WHAT??” “HUNK!” “ARE YOU SERIOUS?!”

While the rest of the team argued about who got to drive and who sat where, Keith sat at the back table of Cousins Paintball’s small cafeteria. He wasn’t just getting away from the noise; he was there because Lance got fed up with everyone calling him out on his Diva Syndrome and parked his ass at the table farthest from the group. **(6)**

Keith held out a paper plate with slice of pepperoni-pineapple pizza. A shower of oregano and red chili flakes littered the slice. “Eat,” he said, shoving the food in Lance’s face. “And there’s no more Pepsi.” **(7)**

“Fantastic,” Lance scathed, accepting the pizza and scarfing it down.

Keith frowned as he sat next to him. “Slow down. You’re gonna choke,” he said. _“Again.”_

“Well, I hope I choke on this and die. And I’m banning everyone except my family from my funeral. And you. But only ‘cause I know you’ll say something nice about me. And also because I know you’ll make sure that I’ll have flowers _around_ my casket, not _in_. Around. And also…”

Keith let Lance grumble and fuss over his fake funeral, the details eerily specific and precise. It’s a conversation he knew he’d bring up another time, when Lance was in a lighter mood, because it seemed like Lance had given this topic a lot of thought. And that? That unsettled him a bit.

“And I want a banner, in blue, with a list of all my accomplishments since the third grade, pinned to the wall behind my casket. And I want a serif font, so it looks official, and the spacing needs to be justified all throughout so it looks nice.” Lance stopped in the middle of his tirade to turn a sharp look on Keith. “I hope you’re writing this down somewhere.”

“Not really,” said Keith. “I was kind of hoping this sort of thing wouldn’t be something we’d need to talk about until we’re in our fifties or something.”

Lance didn’t say anything at first, just staring at him critically with pursed lips and crossed arms in silence. Then, as the implications of Keith’s words started settling in, the deep furrow in his brow smoothed away until it disappeared. Lance looked like he wanted to say something, so Keith kept himself occupied with picking all the pineapple chunks off his pizza. But in the end, all Lance did was turn away and join him in eating his own slice.

They sat in silence together for a while, sitting on the cafeteria bench with their backs to the table and the rest of the group, staring out at the open window that overlooked the entrance to the fields. It was a cold January afternoon, colder than the day Keith had found Lance waiting for him in his room last year. The sky was clear and the sun deceptively bright. There was no wind, thank god; even the slightest breeze at this temperature would make it feel like the arctic, and Keith hated today’s weather enough as it was.

Lance hated it too, more than he did. He’d been bundled thrice over while they were outside, and he still had one of his jackets on over his thick Garrison hoodie and long-sleeved sweater. It was weird, because Lance was like a radiator of heat at night and made Keith sweat every time they slept together, even in the dead of winter. You’d think someone so warm couldn’t possibly get so cold, but he supposed Lance was an anomaly that way. Lance was always an anomaly; unpredictable and full of surprises. Keith would never have imagined that being with someone who could turn his life upside in a heartbeat could be so… comforting.

Of course, it was probably because he’d had fifteen years to get to know him. And yet still, he didn’t _‘know him’_ know him. There were still parts of Lance he didn’t understand, parts of him he’s never gotten to see. And he knows that he’s no different. He knows he’s hidden parts of himself away from Lance — still has. And it was scary, to know that they could be complete strangers after fifteen years of close friendship. Scarier still was how badly he wanted to stay with him, regardless, even if them not knowing each other gave rise to arguments and petty squabbles. They _wanted_ them to work. They _wanted_ to stay together. They _wanted_ each other — _Lance_ wanted _him;_ him and his impulsive, withdrawn, shitty self.

He was chewing on pizza crust and letting Lance eat the chunks of pineapple he’d picked off his slice when they finally started talking again.

“Jessica seems nice.”

Keith stopped mid-chew. After a moment of thought, he dropped the remainder of his crust onto his paper plate and put it on the table behind them. Then he turned around to straddle the bench and looked directly at Lance. “Why are you so hung up on Jessica?”

Lance wiped his hands on his sweatpants and shrugged. “She’s pretty.”

Keith frowned. “So’s Allura, but you don’t get all weird about me spending eight hours a day with her.” **(8)**

Lance didn’t answer him immediately. His lips pressed in a thin line for a few seconds before the words finally came out, jumbled and confused, saying a lot and saying nothing at the same time. “I just— I don’t know, it’s just— It’s different, you know? I mean, like— It’s—” Lance cut himself off, blowing out through his lips and stuffing his hands in his pockets. He didn’t say anything after that, just sent a silent stare out the window and furrowed his brow.

Keith chose his next words carefully. “Are you… Are you jealous?”

“Yes?” Lance threw his hands out of his pocket and tossed them in the air.It was as if a bubble had burst, and all the tension trapped inside came out in one word. Lance dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Ugh, this is stupid.” Lance drew his hands from his face, frustration still drawing his brow tight, and sighed again. “It’s stupid. Sorry. I know it’s stupid.”

Keith reached out and took one of Lance’s hands in his own. “It’s okay.”

Lance chewed on his lip, still looking out the window. “It’s just… really hard. When we finally got together, I was so happy. And then we… It’s like the world ripped us apart, you know? And it’s… it’s _frustrating,_ being so far away from you all the time.”

Keith held Lance’s hand in his and stayed quiet, waiting for Lance to continue. He did, after a while; and when he started speaking again, there was a bitterness he heard, that he had felt so intimately himself — and it made him want to bring Lance close to him and tell him that it was okay, that they would get through this. But he didn’t. Instead, he sat and listened and waited.

“You know, it _kills_ me. To think about how much time we’ve wasted. And it feels like we’re wasting even more time, ‘cause it feels like I’m stuck a million miles away, crashing all my flight sims and getting yelled at for falling asleep because I’m staying up all night studying just to keep up with everyone else, and I— I start thinking, like… what if it’s not worth it? What if I’m not worth it? What if I really am wasting time? I don’t wanna waste anyone’s time. I don’t—” Lance turned to look at him, finally, “…I don’t wanna lose you.”

Keith felt his eyes widen at the admission. It was weird to hear this coming from Lance, the person Keith always felt he had to fight the world to keep. “Lance, I…” He stopped, reaching out with a hand to touch the side of Lance’s face, to feel the warmth of his cheek against his palm, the strong line of his jaw, the curve of his ear, and remember. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much you mean to me,” he said, staring into Lance’s eyes. “There’s no way you can lose me.”

Lance hold Keith’s hand with his own and held his gaze. “I lost you once. It took me a year to get you back.”

Keith laced their fingers together, squeezing tight. “I’m sorry.”

Lance squeezed back. “Yeah,” he said, “Me too.” Lance let go of his hand and turned his head to kiss the palm of Keith’s hand. “I missed you,” he sighed and pressed another kiss against his hand, this time on top. “God, I missed you,” he groaned, leaning in and dropping his face on Keith’s shoulder.

Keith opened his hand to slip his fingers through Lance’s, holding tight. “I dream about you, sometimes.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lance leaned back slightly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. A wicked grin slowly stretched on Lance’s face. “Do tell.”

Keith tried to scowl and push Lance away, but he ended up laughing when Lance leaned in to peck him on the lips and then his cheek. He rested his face on Keith’s neck; Keith could feel his smile against his neck, familiar lips planting a chaste kiss against the soft skin on the spot below his ear.

Keith wound his fingers in Lance’s hair, stroking softly. “I dream of you waking me up in the mornings,” he started, letting himself smile as he remembered. “You always pull the blankets off me and we end up laughing together.”

Lance chuckled, the sound warm and muffled against his neck. Keith slipped his fingers from Lance’s hair to curl his arm around him, holding him close. The smile on his face started to drop. He swallowed. “Then I wake up, and you’re not there.”

Lance pulled away slowly, his free hand coming to touch Keith’s face and bring their lips close together. Lance’s gaze, soft and tender, made his heart soar. “I’m here now.”

“Yeah,” said Keith, “You are.”

They kissed long and slow, clasped hands squeezing tight as they moved their lips together in a gentle rhythm. Keith lowered his other hand to the side of Lance’s hip when Lance pushed into him, holding his chin and tilting Keith’s head back at the same time. He could taste the fruity tang of pineapple, and the lingering taste of margarita and pepperoni danced on his own tongue. But he didn’t care because Lance didn’t care, because right now, they were finally together.

They came apart only when they heard someone cough and loudly clear their throat. Keith pulled away immediately, suddenly remembering they were in public, and fucking hell, everybody was standing right there and here they were, making out and getting carried away.

Keith cleared his own throat, swinging his leg over the bench to sit facing the table, as well as looking to see who had come to speak with them. It was probably Allura, or Shiro, or one of the staff members, asking them to please _‘get a room’_ and maintain public decency.

He was surprised to see that it was Pidge standing on the other side of the table. So was Lance, who got real quiet all of a sudden, and Keith knew it wasn’t because he was embarrassed for being all over him; Lance never felt any shame for showing his love.

Pidge was standing with her face buried behind the high collar of her jacket, looking anywhere but at Lance. There was some sort of bitterness to the expression on her face, which made Keith wary about the words that were no doubt to be exchanged.

“I’m sorry for trying to chew off your legs,” she finally said.

Lance’s eyes narrowed. “Did Shiro tell you to apologize?”

Keith elbowed Lance and sent him a glare.

“What?! I want to know! I deserve a real apology—!”

“Yes,” Pidge interrupted, “You do. And no, Shiro didn’t tell me to do anything.” Pidge hesitated for a moment, her eyes shifting off and on from Lance’s face. Then, she started to ramble. “Well, Allura did, but that was a while back when I was still pissed, so I told her to fuck off. Not in those exact words, because, uh, I would never say it like that to her, ‘cause, you know, she’s really, really great and she’s like a big sister to me and I love her and all, and I don’t know why I’m telling you all that, since it has nothing to do with my apology, but I guess I just wanted you to know that she’s family. Like you, I guess. Actually, I consider all of you guys my family, so that’s probably why you get on my nerves so much, and that’s why we end up fighting and—”

“It’s okay,” said Lance, “I’m… I shouldn’t’ve tried to knock your teeth out. Or call you a space-hogging elephant. I’m sorry, too.”

Pidge beamed. Then, she hopped onto the table, slid right across, and dropped down to sit between them. She pulled out her phone. “So, now that _that’s_ out of the way— Hunk and I started getting texts from Shay, like, an hour ago. She’s freaking out right now because she lost Lotor at the Met—” **(9)**

“She _lost_ a three-year-old child?!” “Didn’t she put him on a leash?”

 _“Shhh!”_ Pidge hissed, tossing a surreptitious look over her shoulder. “Not so loud!” When she deemed it safe to continue the conversation, she turned back to them and relayed her plan. “Hunk and I are gonna see if we can get track the chip in Lotor’s earring, but we’re gonna need some time.”

Keith exchanged a brief look with Lance.

“Sooo,” Lance drawled knowingly, turning to Pidge, “You want us to make a distraction? How long?”

“A few hours,” was the vague reply. She pushed her glasses up on her face as her thumbs flew across the screen of her phone.

Keith frowned. “How the hell are we gonna keep those two from checking up on Lotor for ‘a few hours’?”

Lance grinned. “Like this,” he said, getting up. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted across the cafeteria. “Hey, Shiro! Zheng He! You guys up for another round of paintball? Let’s see who’s the better couple!”

“You’re on!” Allura shouted as Shiro laughed and flashed a grin.

Beside them, Dou Xian flew out of his seat and leaped onto Zheng He’s back. “Hell, yeah! Let’s show ‘em who really rocks!” Zheng He, face still stoic, swatted Dou Xian’s hands away from his head but didn’t protest otherwise.

Recalling Allura’s deadly marksmanship and Zheng He’s wildcard nature, Keith turned an alarmed look on Lance. “What’re you doing?” he hissed. “Do you have a death wish?”

“Just play along, will ya? I got a plan.”

Keith groaned and dropped his face into his hands. “If I can’t walk tomorrow, I’m blaming you.”

Lance flashed him a wicked grin. “Won’t that be the truth?”

At that, Keith had to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(1)** Clyde Zaks. Klaizap. Get it?
> 
>  **(2)** I was originally gonna include a scene of the car ride, but I wanted to get this chapter out so I stopped writing in the middle of it and just moved on.
> 
>  **(3)** [Cousins Paintball](http://www.cousinspaintball.com/) is one of the more popular places for a paintball game in New York City. It's all the way out on Long Island, so it's definitely a drive. But worth it, according to the reviews. :V
> 
>  **(4)** Something that I never fit into chapter 9 but was in the original plan was Jessica Nguyen's fishtail tattoo. It's on the left side of her body, and is exactly the same in design and color as her sister's. Keith only knows she has it because she showed him a picture of it.
> 
>  **(5)** Whitestone is a quiet, suburban neighborhood in Queens, NYC.
> 
>  **(6)** I've never been to Cousins Paintball, so I have no idea if they have a cafeteria or whatever. I imagine that they do? There's a rental shop and everything there. Plus, you can have pizza delivered right to their fields. ...Not that that proves there'll be a cafeteria. I just thought it was important to know.
> 
>  **(7)** There was a lot of arguing about what went on the pizza.
> 
>  **(8)** Keith works Mondays through Saturdays, from 9AM to 5PM. He's allowed an hour and a half break for lunch at a time of his choosing, but he'll frequently stuff half a protein bar and work straight through. He chooses his own work hours.
> 
>  **(9)** "Met" is short for the [Metropolitan Museum of Art](http://www.metmuseum.org/), located in the upper east side of NYC.

**Author's Note:**

> "s-tover" on Tumblr.


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